


No Bad Dogs

by Kate Andrews (k8andrewz)



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Dom/sub Play, Domestic Fluff, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Femdom, First Time, Kink Negotiation, Masturbation, Orgasm Control, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Power Imbalance, Praise Kink, Ransom is trying to be less of a sociopath, Second Chances, Slow Burn, Sub Ransom Drysdale, Under-negotiated Kink, don't worry the dog is never in any danger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:41:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 47,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k8andrewz/pseuds/Kate%20Andrews
Summary: Ransom has needs.
Relationships: Marta Cabrera/Ransom Drysdale
Comments: 26
Kudos: 171
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riverlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverlight/gifts).



> Some canon-typical violent thoughts, and recollection of/allusion to violent acts by one of the characters. No 'on screen' violence. Some dodgy underlying power dynamics at play during the development of an under-negotiated D/s relationship, but no coercion. If there's anything you think I need to warn for that I missed, please feel free to let me know in comments. 
> 
> Also, everything I know about the legal/incarceration/parole system (and most of everything else to be honest) I learned from pop culture, so apologies for any errors. And I may have fudged/substituted headcanon for a couple of the movie details to make Ransom's redemption of sorts feel more plausible. 
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: While this takes place a few years down the line in the universe of the film, after Ransom is released from prison, there's a brief but unpleasant flashback to his experiences during his first winter in prison that involves him dealing with COVID-19 as an incarcerated person.

Ransom needed a ride.

It was his own fault really, on a number of levels. Certainly more levels than he'd have admitted the day he stepped inside the prison gates, over eight years ago. Nothing had been his fault then. In his estimation, everyone in his life had shared the blame for the predicament he found himself in. Everyone but Ransom. Especially that upstart bitch nurse. That's where his head had been.

On that day, his mental description of Marta Cabrera had been a good deal more colorful than 'upstart bitch', but that was then and this, he thought as he looked up at the darkening grey sky, was now.

He'd changed since that day. Evolved, he liked to think. Grown in some ways, and others? Well, that was some introspective shit he could waste time on when he wasn't shivering on an empty country road, the sun rapidly sinking toward the horizon behind a mess of clouds the color of steel and ash.

More specifically, Ransom's current lack of a ride stemmed from an over-abundance of misplaced faith in people who were by all accounts, by fucking blood, supposed to have his back. Sure, it had been his actions, his decisions, his greed that had led to a reduction in circumstances and/or reputation for all of them. Or at least to it happening when it did, because the old man changing his will hadn't been Ransom's fault. Not entirely, anyway.

No, it had been the whole sour lot of them that'd led Harlan to bequeath the entirety of the family fortune to his hot little nurse. Truth was, though, the senior Thrombey had cut any number of his brood out of the will over the years, then changed his mind again. It was almost a running joke between him and his eldest grandson. He'd already done it to Ransom twice, only to change his mind the next month when he was high off the success of another chart-topping stack of ink and dead trees. Plenty of times, he'd confided in Ransom that Joni or Walt were out. 

That never lasted long either.

If Ransom had had even a little fucking patience, chances were the fickle old codger would've come around for the hundredth time before he kicked the bucket.

Or at the very least, Ransom would've kept what he had: the house, the car, the killer wardrobe.

The freedom.

But no. He'd gotten angry and greedy and oh-so-clever. He'd sat there in the Beemer, shouting obscenities and pounding the steering wheel, mind white-hot with anger at his arrogant prick of a grandfather getting taken in by some pretty little Brazilian nurse. A nurse who'd been utterly immune to Ransom's charms. She wasn't even wary of him, just acted like his best boyish smile didn't even register. Intellectually he knew it was probably just a protective shell of professionalism, someone going into the homes of people as entitled as the Thrombeys... someone who looked like her? It made all the sense in the world.

But when he'd been digging his nails into the soft leather of the steering wheel cover, ears ringing, vision vibrating in time with his pulse at the thought of all those millions, _his_ millions going to her? Her resistance to his charm hadn't helped. He'd clenched his hands until his knuckles ached, thoughts of throttling her until her pink tongue lolled out filling his mind. One after another, every dark scenario Harlan ever cooked up ran through Ransom's mind, each of them happening to the old man, murder after clever bloody murder.

Some deep breaths and the worst of the rage had passed. He'd thrown the car into drive, ready to head home and get piss drunk on five-hundred dollar scotch or call one of the half a dozen disposable women he kept in rotation with good sex, expensive dinners, and playing hot and cold. He'd imagined Marta as a stranger, some gorgeous girl he'd charmed home from a bar, impressed with the five hundred dollar bottle of scotch, then when her back was turned, poured a glass of bargain basement well whiskey and watched her simper over how complex the flavors were. It was a little game he used to play with himself, and none of the women he'd pulled it on had known the difference, or at least they were too eager to get in his pants to call him on it.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, with the possible exception of Marta herself, that had been when Ransom had what he later described as his 'moment of clarity.'

His idea for the 'perfect crime'.

The simplicity of it. The old man peacefully drifting off into a cloud of opiate-laced oblivion, the nurse losing her millions because of her involvement. Sure, some suspicion would be thrown her way, but drug mix ups happened all the time. She wouldn't go to jail for it. He'd given himself a moment to imagine swooping in magnanimously, offering her an expensive lawyer paid for out of his own trust, her tan thighs spreading in gratitude.

A nice image, and that's all it should have been. He should have driven home. To this day, he still didn't entirely understand what possessed him to do what he did. He'd just been so fucking impressed with his own cleverness. So sure he could get away with it. So high on the idea that he, Ransom, the eternally worthless fuckup, would end up being the hero who saved the family fortune, and they'd never know. But he'd know. He would have that to silently hold over them for the rest of his life.

All that at the expense of just a few years, or maybe even months shaved off the end of an old man's life. Shitty ones at that. Half a dozen maladies had been poised to take Harlan down at any moment, or turn him into a drooling, pain-wracked shell of his former self. It had just been a question of which one would win the race. Really, Ransom had assured himself, he was doing his grandfather a favor. He was doing his family a favor. It was almost heroic, when you thought about it.

And so he hadn't driven home.

He'd done the deed, pocketed the life-saving antidote on the off chance she recognized his symptoms, and slipped away high on his own brilliance. At home, on his feather-soft sheets, he'd held the naloxone in one hand, his dick in the other, and edged to the thought of Marta crying hot, desperate tears on his shoulder, swearing that she hadn't done what they were accusing her of. He'd imagined her collapsing in relief the day his lawyers told her they'd gotten the charges dropped, pictured gathering her up in his arms and taking her home and watching those blow-up doll lips of hers stretched around his cock, wide eyes blinking up at him in gratitude. Spanish or possibly Portuguese obscenities pouring from her mouth as she rode him and all the while knowing that everything had worked out according to his perfect plan.

Of course, that wasn't how it had worked out.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be standing outside the gates of a state prison, waiting for the sky to open up and start pissing down icy rain. Waiting for the ride that clearly wasn't coming, and yes, that was entirely his fault. Even though he hadn't heard back from his mother or his father or his uncle or his cousin, all of whom he'd sent a letter with news of his early release date, some stupid, childish, hopeful pebble of optimism had led him to believe that at least one of them would be there to pick him up. To lord it over him, if nothing else.

But that too wasn't how it had worked out.

A fat drop landed on his nose, then a few more, pattering his buzzcut skull. He tugged up the hood of the grey, prison-issue sweatshirt, zipped his shitty jacket up to his throat, then shoved his hands in the front pockets and considered his options.

The bus stop a few dozen yards from the chain link gates was just a lopsided sign, not even a shitty little shelter. When the bus had rolled up, half an hour after the penitentiary disgorged a couple dozen of his fellow newly-minted ex-cons, a dozen or so had lined up and boarded. Another dozen or so had already been picked up, either by joyful clusters of family members already waiting with hugs and tears, a few solitary wives or girlfriends, or in Robbie's case, husband.

Robbie had offered him a ride into town. But Ransom had declined, and despite the bus driver telling him this was the last one of the day, he'd waved the woman off. Ransom had a ride, he'd told the woman.

Ransom, it turned out, did not have a ride.

Ransom needed a ride.

The patter turned into a stinging, soaking downpour. The closest town was nine miles in the direction the bus had gone, and if he started walking now, maybe he'd arrive before dusk turned to pitch black. Hitchhiking was a possibility, but on a road that passed a state prison, with an unkempt beard and a large frame he'd packed an additional forty or so pounds of muscle onto while inside, Ransom didn't think it was a very likely one.

And so, with a sigh, he turned east and started walking.

In his pocket he had his prison ID and a state issued debit card with $200 on it. His thin cloth jacket offered fuck all in the way of protection from the late November sleet, and within a few minutes, everything he wore was soaked through. As he trudged, a few cars sped by— a white minivan, something small and blue, a sleek black sedan going the wrong direction, a tractor trailer— all of them ignoring his extended thumb. He didn't blame them. He wouldn't pick him up either.

Time passed; hard to gauge how much, but too soon night approached and Ransom's feet were growing numb. A little while later, he stumbled and fell, scraping his knees on the sharp gravel, barely feeling it but knowing instinctively he'd drawn blood. He stayed there for a moment, on his hands and knees, trying to summon some of the white hot anger he'd had when he'd first gotten to prison, years ago. Or some of the determination he'd clung to, in the years after that, when he'd dedicated himself to making the most of his situation, as fucked as it was.

But none of that came to him. Instead, deep in his chest, he felt an echo of the rattling emptiness that had threatened to consume him that first, terrifying winter inside. He remembered with startling clarity just how it felt to want to give up. How warm and tempting that impulse could be, on the darkest, coldest night.

But.

He wasn't about to curl up here on the side of the road and freeze to death. Any second, he would put one foot on the ground, then the other, then force himself to stand and keep walking until he at least found some shelter. Any moment, Ransom was going to shove away the waves of self-pity that threatened to pull him under.

He'd survived worse. He was better than this. He was Harlan Thrombey's grandson, for fuck's sake, and he sure as hell wasn't about to wind up some tragic-slash-ironic footnote on the old man's Wikipedia page. More than that, he was Hugh Ransom Motherfucking Drysdale, and even if his family had abandoned him (with good reason, to be fair) this was not how his story was going to end.

And so he forced himself to his knees. Then his feet.

Then he saw the headlights. He knew it was probably pointless but he extended his thumb anyway, arm trembling as he held it aloft waiting for the car to pass.

Only, it didn't.

It slowed.

It rolled to a stop beside him. A tinted back window descended, revealing the warm light of the interior and a face. A woman's face.

Ransom blinked, sure he was seeing things.

Then she spoke, in a lilting accent that haunted his dreams all eight years, five months and twenty seven days he'd been inside those prison walls. "Do you need help?"

"Marta?" He croaked through chattering teeth.

"Ransom?"

"You've g-got to be fucking kidding me."

She just sat there, mouth in a surprised O, for several seconds, looking him up and down. "I didn't--we passed you earlier but I didn't recognize you in the dark..." She leaned forward, peering at his face. "With that beard, my goodness. I'm sorry about that."

"For what?"

She ignored his question, choosing instead to swing open the door and scoot to the far side of the back seat. "Get in."

He stared at her, wondering if perhaps he actually had curled up on the side of the road, and this was some hallucination firing across his synapses as it all shut down. If it was, he might as well ride this dream down into eternal slumber. And if it wasn't?

She leaned over and frowned out at him. "Don't be a stubborn fool, Ransom. Get in the car right now."

He obeyed, climbing stiffly into the back seat and, with a squelch, sitting beside her.

She clicked on a second, brighter, overhead light and looked him over. With a quick motion and a couple silver bracelets clanking on her wrist, she yanked back his hoodie, narrowing her eyes as she studied his face.

He winced at the assault of light. "H-hey," he said, teeth still chattering.

"Hey, yourself," she said in a scolding tone. "Your lips are blue. Henry, pop the trunk please." She disappeared out the door on her side, returning moments later with a black and red plaid blanket. Shutting the door behind her, she said, "Give me the jacket and the hoodie."

"What?"

"Close your door and take that off, it's drenched." She gestured impatiently.

He complied, stripping down to just his thin wet t-shirt, and before he could hand her the sodden jacket and hoodie, she snatched them away and shoved them down by her feet. Then, she fluffed out the blanket and arranged it over him, tucking it around him like he was some kind of invalid. He didn't have it in him to do anything but stare at her dumbly.

"Henry," she said, gesturing at the driver. "Home."

Once the car was in motion, Ransom found his words and although his shivering had intensified in the warmth of the car, he managed to get out, "What the f-fuck are you d-doing here?"

"Why aren't you at the bus station?"

"W-wanted to stretch my legs."

She scoffed and pulled on her seatbelt. With a pointed look she gestured for him to do the same. He wasn't about to fight her on that, so he pushed down the blanket and managed to catch the tab with his stiff hand, but it was still too numb to manage the buckle. After his fourth attempt, she took it from him and clicked it in, adjusting it across his chest before tugging the blanket back up. "You must've known they weren't coming."

"I don't know w-what you're talking about."

"I waited for you at the bus station. One of your friends told me you were still at the prison."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Which question is that?" She reached up and clicked off the overhead lights, leaving them bathed in only a dim hint of illumination coming from the dashboard up front.

He stared out his window for a few moments, watching the dark countryside whiz by. "Why are you here?"

"Meg called me. She was going to come. Joni found out and let the air out of her tires."

He snorted. "Still doesn't answer my question."

"No?"

"Not really."

"You have nowhere to go."

"That's not your problem. That is, in fact, the opposite of your problem."

"You're not making sense."

"Meg was going to come? Really?"

"That's what she told me."

He believed her. Of course he believed her. She couldn't lie. Something about the fact that someone in his family had wanted to be there for him broke him a little inside and for a while he sat there in silence beside her. As the heat finally penetrated his skin and his shivering lessened, the exhaustion of the day hit him full force. His eyelids grew heavy. While he thought up a witty retort, he decided to rest his eyes, just for a second.

*

A stranger's hand gripped his shoulder.

In an instant, he instinctively caught it, trapping it, squeezing viciously hard. A high pitched whimper brought him fully awake, eyes flying open to find Marta hovering over him from outside the car. Just as quickly he released her, watching warily as she waved off the driver. "I'm fine," she said, rubbing her hand. "He's fine, aren't you, Ransom."

"Peachy keen," he drawled, heart still pounding. 

"Great, come on," she coaxed, stepping back from the door.

He started to ask where they were, then caught sight of the house. Harlan's house. Her house now. Something he didn't know was still raw shifted inside of him. She spoke in low tones with the driver as Ransom stiffly climbed out of the car, holding the blanket around himself with one aching hand. The rain had stopped. In one of the upstairs windows, he saw a familiar warm glow of a Tiffany lamp (authentic, natch) that'd been there since his childhood. He looked down and caught her watching him intently. "Why am I here, Marta?"

She pursed her lips. "You're here because I brought you here."

"Why?"

"You had nowhere else to go."

"Why would you give a shit about that?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Does it matter tonight?"

He examined her stubborn face for some sign of the trick of this. There had to be a catch. But, the woman did have a point. Catch or not, he wasn't going to suss anything out in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, with wet clothes, no phone, and a two hundred dollar debit card to his name. "Guess not," he finally said.

As they headed into the house, the car pulled away, wheels crunching on the wet gravel drive. Inside, the place was quiet. He paused in the entryway and looked around, taking in the changes. Some things remained, but most of Harlan's morbid tchotchkes were nowhere to be seen. The wallpaper had been replaced by paint in hues of goldenrod and crimson and a deep, warm violet.

Marta unwound her long, colorblock scarf, the same one she'd always worn back when she was a nurse, if he wasn't mistaken, and hung it on a hook along with her coat. "Your shoes, please," she directed. 

He looked down and saw that his ill-fitting canvas sneakers were caked with mud, as were his sweats, up to his knees. 

"Your pants too, off with them."

A few flirtatious replies tickled the back of his mind but he was beyond rusty, and he didn't trust them to come out as anything other than pathetic. Besides, he was more or less past thinking this was some sort of trick, at least in the short term. He wouldn't put it past her to be doing this out of the frankly excessive goodness of her heart, but he was also well aware that some ulterior motive was probably a factor.

Either way, or some other way lying in wait to ambush him, tomorrow was something he was going to have to face, and doing it with hot food in his stomach and a night in a dry bed under his belt was the smartest play. For close to a decade, he'd been stuck in a place where he simultaneously had nothing to do but plan for the future, and very little control over the minute to minute, day to day, year to year of his life.

There were things he had learned. About other people. About himself. About what he was capable of. But if there was one thing prison had taught him, it was patience. And if there was a second, it was that when things were going in your favor, best not to fuck it up by opening your mouth.

So he stripped.

"Wait here," she said, not bothering to wait for a reply as she disappeared up the staircase. He complied, and as he did, a soft thump came from the direction of the parlor. Before he succumbed to curiosity, a fat, butterscotch-colored corgi waddled out of the room and toward him, across the familiar rug. It stopped at his feet, plopped its ample bottom on the floor and yawned up at him before flopping dramatically to one side.

"Hello," he said quietly.

The dog huffed at him.

"What's her deal?" he asked it.

It thumped its bushy tail on the floor a few times, then sighed.

Carefully, Ransom crouched beside the animal, wincing at the sting in his scraped knees. Most dogs hated him on sight, and he learned young to return the favor, but this one wasn't growling or even baring its teeth as he got close. Experimentally, he laid a hand on the fluffy rump and gave it a stroke. The dog responded by rolling to its back, exposing its creamy belly, tongue flopping out.

It felt like a trap, but Ransom gave the soft fur a pet anyway, then scratched at it as he'd seen others do until one of its legs kicked at the air.

"Are you a good boy?" he asked in a serious tone. "I guess we'll have to see."

A creak came from the stairs and he looked up to find Marta coming down with a quilt under one arm, a white box in her other hand. "Of course he is a good boy," she said dismissively. "There are no bad dogs, only bad owners."

With a final scratch under the fluffball's chin, Ransom rose.

"Kitchen," she said, strolling past him.

He followed.

This room had changed a little less, new mosaic backsplash and new bigger refrigerator, but more or less the same room where he'd stolen Fran's mom's warm cookies straight from the tray as a child. Marta pulled out one of the tall stools with square backs from the marble-top island and patted the seat, waiting until he slid on before dropping the quilt on the counter and pulling a pair of thick grey socks from between the folds. Those she deposited on his lap. The white box, with a red plus sign on the top, dropped beside the quilt, then she went about pulling containers from the massive, double-doored refrigerator.

He kept his eyes on her as he tugged the socks on, then pulled the quilt around his shoulders. The dog trotted in, nails clicking on the tile. Plopping down at Ransom's feet, it whined and eyed him hungrily. "Sorry, I got nothing," he murmured at it.

"Don't fall for his bullshit," she said without turning around. Ladling something that looked like stew from a plastic container into a saucepan, she added, "He had his dinner." A few clicks and the blue flame beneath the pan flared, then she turned to continue rummaging around the kitchen.

The dog snuffled at Ransom's toes where they perched on the stool's footrest, then gave them a few warm licks before waddling over to Marta. She bent to rub his head, then pulled a pair of bottles from the fridge, opened both, and slid one over to Ransom. He caught it and held it up to examine the label.

Beer. Jesus. He hadn't had beer in... since... 

She tipped her bottle back and downed a couple gulps before setting it on the white and grey marble with a clink. "So," she said.

He took a tentative sip. The flavor exploded on his tongue, bitter and fizzy and yeasty. There had been days when he thought he'd never taste beer again. He took another, then replied evenly, "So."

"You're in need of a place to stay."

"You could say that."

"The terms of your parole require you find employment."

"That's what they tell me."

"My groundskeeper could use some help."

He blinked at her.

"And there are far more rooms in this place than I could possibly use."

He blinked at her again. She stared right back. Oh, she was serious. Conversationally, he asked, "Have you lost your goddamn mind?"

"Excuse me?"

He took another swig and set it down louder than he meant to. The dog replied to the clank with a whuff. "What is this? Some fucked up power trip? Are you that bored? Or trying to prove what a saint you are? I'd've thought you'd already--"

"I am no saint," she said slowly and calmly.

That calm was prickling his nerves, and his frustration with the day, his disappointment in his family and his looming sense of powerlessness all got the better of him. "I tried," he enunciated, as though to a very dim person, "to murder you, you stupid bitch."

She frowned, then with a slight roll of her eyes, she took another sip of her beer. "Except that you didn't."

He unclenched his jaw enough to grind out, "That's only because--"

"Ransom," she admonished. "Harlan kept detailed diaries going back a very long time. To before you were born. Did you know that?"

He did not. He knew the old man kept notebooks full of ideas and had written a memoir full of self-aggrandizing half-truths, but not diaries.

She continued. "I read them. Including the one from the summer you were his research assistant. Every single one of those knives is fake. Either rubber, or collapsible, or a prop from some famous movie, meant to bend or break. And you know that because you acquired another couple dozen of them for him that summer."

The stew started to bubble, so she turned the flame down to low, then pulled several paper towels off the roll and wetted them in the sink. As he watched, she came around to his side of the kitchen island and dragged over a shorter, regular chair from the table, arranging it in front of him. She sat and got to work dabbing at the half-coagulated scrapes on his knees. He watched dumbly as she cleaned away the blood, hissing at one pass that really stung. "Maybe I forgot," he grumbled.

She shot him a skeptical look. "You are a big man, Ransom. If you'd really wanted to kill me, or hurt me badly, you could've used your bare hands, and I doubt the policemen could've stopped you before you did damage. Would you hand me the box?"

He did as she asked.

She balanced it on her knees, pulling out cotton balls and a small bottle of disinfectant. As she dabbed at his cuts, she continued. "And so, what I believe is that you didn't want to hurt me. What you wanted in that moment was to see me frightened."

"If you say so."

"I'm not saying it's what's true. I'm saying it's what I believe." She dropped the second blood-stained cotton ball on the counter and neatly applied bandages to his knees before rising and putting her chair back under the table.

He took another drink from his bottle. "Even if you're right, and I'm not saying you are, nine years is a real long time."

"If you say so." She took two big bowls from the cupboard and ladled stew into both. She dropped in spoons, set one in front of Ransom and the other on the far side of the counter.

The rich, meaty fragrance wafting up made his mouth so wet he nearly drooled. Honestly, he couldn't remember the last time he smelled something so good. He blew on a spoonful to cool it and watched as she pulled a loaf of bread from the top of the refrigerator. She had to go up on her tiptoes, her nubbly, grey-blue sweater rising to reveal a sliver of tan back. As she turned to lay the loaf on the counter and cut a few thick slices, he turned his attention back where it belonged, the feast in front of him. 

At the first mouthful he may have moaned, just a little, and only the piping hot temperature kept him from shoveling it non-stop until he hit the bottom of the bowl. She took her time buttering the slices of bread and slid one over to him on a paper towel, then nibbled at her own slice as she watched him. As it was, he burned his tongue but kept going, only coming up for air when he finished. 

She pushed her untouched bowl across to him. "I'm not sure I understand your point, though."

A few more spoonfuls from the new bowl, half the slice of bread, a swig of beer to wash it down, and he said, angling the longneck at her, "My point is that maybe for those eight years I held a grudge. Maybe, I spent all that time thinking about snapping your neck."

"Hmm." She took another bite of bread and tilted her head as she chewed, regarding him evenly. "That doesn't sound very creative. I would think if you were plotting my murder, you'd be a little more clever than just snapping my neck. You are his grandson after all."

"Maybe I spent all my creative juices on thinking up ways to hurt you first."

"Oh?"

"Maybe," he said coolly, "Once I finish this soup I take my time hurting you, grab some valuables and disappear into the night."

"You could do that. He's certainly not much of a guard dog," she peered down at the corgi. "Are you Gordito?" She tore off a morsel of bread and dropped it on the floor for him with a smile, then looked back over at Ransom, clearly unbothered. "But my driver knows you're here. My mother knows you're here, and she agrees with you that this is a bad idea, by the way. Meg knows you're here. You could do whatever you wanted to me and I'm in no position to stop you. But then where would you go? On the run from the law? You're certainly not as famous as you were during the height of the scandal, but with a face like that, it's only a matter of time before someone recognizes you and you either go out in a blaze of glory, or they catch you and put you back in that sad little box for the rest of your life. Something tells me that isn't what you really want."

"That's a pretty big gamble you're taking."

"This is true."

"And what do you mean, a face like that?"

"Now you're fishing for compliments?"

He sat back and sputtered, crossing his arms over his chest. The quilt slipped off his shoulders, but in the warmth of the house, with his belly full of stew, he didn't mind. An additional wave of heat washed over him as her gaze slipped to his arms, his chest, then finally back to his face. "I'm still a convicted killer, Marta. People are dead because of me."

The warmth in her eyes hardened into something sober. "I know that."

"Do you?"

"Look me in the eye and tell me the truth. Are you sorry for what you did?"

"What does that matter?"

"Answer the question."

"Are you talking about Harlan or the housekeeper."

"You know her name and now you're just trying to upset me."

"I--" he closed his mouth and gave her question the attention it merited. To say he'd had a long time to think while he was inside was an understatement. More than enough time to give him the opportunity to consider his actions and what led him to them, and come around to understanding how deeply fucked up he was to think that doing what he did was justified, that the reasons he had were enough. 

To his surprise, he had actually taken that opportunity.

Harlan, he could almost make sense of. Harlan, at least, would've gotten a kick out of him almost getting away with it, only to be bested by Marta and Lieutenant Cornpone. Harlan, it took him longer to really regret.

But Fran. Fran he did because he was scared and angry at himself for letting his little funeral afternoon jaunt be seen. For forgetting Fran even existed while he executed his brilliant plan. But the truth was, all she'd seen was him fucking with the bag. Turns out, she had jack shit in that toxicology report, and he could just as easily have cried addiction. He could have claimed to be tempted by the sweet, sweet opiates but managed to leave the vials at the last second, ashamed by the thought of his poor dead grandfather's disappointment. Between his teenage stint in rehab (for different shit but who was keeping score) and Marta's confession, the waters were muddy enough. The arson was a loose thread but his shysters could've made it work.

Hell, if they'd nabbed him on the arson, he could've claimed he'd done that to protect Marta. That he'd carried a metaphorical torch for the pretty young woman ever since she'd come to work for his grandfather, and that he'd done it in his grandfather's name as much as any other reason. After all, the old man had slit his own throat to keep her from paying for her mistake. What was a little lighter fluid on a building empty of people? 

Of course, that wasn't how it had worked out.

He wished he could have said the poor little rich junkie play hadn't occurred to him, but it had. It had also occurred to him that to execute it, he'd need to suffer through another round of his family acting deeply unsurprised at his backslide. Also, the plan depended on Marta keeping her mouth shut about her fuck up and following through with giving Ransom the cut he'd demanded at that pub. The idea that she'd still keep the lion's share of Harlan's millions, his family's millions, didn't sit well, but he hadn't been lying when he said fuck his family. And even if she hadn't followed through on the payout, he'd have kept what already had. He could have made that choice.

Or.

Ransom could choose to be clever again. He could stay the course on his original plan to frame the undeserving nurse, and that's just what he did. And that's just what fucked him up. He could almost hear his grandfather's words in his ear, " _That's how you get caught. Pulling the same trick twice, and worse, not adapting to changing circumstances. Amateur hour, my boy. I thought you were better than that._ "

Fran hadn't deserved to die any more than Harlan, but more to the point, Fran hadn't needed to die. Ransom had another option but he chose not to take it. He could make up explanations for the rest of time, but the simple truth was, Ransom got greedy. Fran got dead. Benoit got his man. And now, nearly a decade later, Marta got to look him in the eye in a dimly lit kitchen and ask him for contrition. 

It would be nice to believe he came to his remorse over Fran all on his own, some hard work of personal growth leading to enlightenment and the measured choice to atone for his sins and be a better man, but that would be bullshit.

The truth was, that first horrible winter in prison, the winter of 2020, he was still blaming Fran and Marta and his grandfather and Benoit for his predicament. He was sorry he got caught but he wasn't sorry he did it, he would've told you if he'd been in a sharing mood.

But then, he'd watched a plague he'd dodged that summer sweep through the prison a second time, this time mowing down old-timers and guards and tough men built like bulls alike, indiscriminate and merciless. He'd listened as night after night, for months, the sound of gasping, incessant coughs echoed through the cells. He'd said good night to his moderately-ill roommate, a dim-witted prick with a temper in on five counts of armed robbery, who nevertheless took the time to teach Ransom the basics of not just surviving but thriving on the inside. Early next morning, when Ransom got up to piss, Chet was cold. 

It took the guards two hours to come see what Ransom was going on about.

The next day, alone in his cell, Ransom started coughing. 

He didn't get a change of clothes for two weeks as he alternately shivered and burned. Day and night blended together and all he remembered from the worst of it was waking up over and over, unable to suck in enough air, feeling like he was drowning in his own phlegm with every crackling, rattling cough. Guards in full PPE left cold lunches just inside his door. When he managed to crawl over, everything tasted like cardboard at best, but he'd forced it down out of sheer spite. There was one time, when he'd been passed out on the concrete floor for he didn't know how long, parched with thirst and unable to force his body up to drink from the sink that he'd made do with the toilet.

It was, in retrospect, what one might call a low point.

When he wasn't delirious from fever, he had a lot of time to reflect on the choices that had led him there. At one point he became fixated on the memory of Fran's shitty tea. She always left the bag in too long and either put in too much sugar or none at all. He was pretty sure she fucked up his tea on purpose because he was such a prick to her. He wouldn't have been surprised to learn she spit in it.

Alone on the floor of his cell, knowing his survival was a coin toss since he'd already seen this thing take fitter men than him once it grabbed hold, he'd have given his left arm for a hot cup of Fran's shitty tea, spit included.

And yeah, okay, it was pretty fucked up that he didn't recognize Fran's worth as a fellow human-fucking-being until he was faced with the prospect of dying alone in a grim concrete box where no one gave a shit if he survived--no Tylenol, no soft blanket, no cool washcloth, no hot tea, no one washing the sheets gone stiff with sweat and god knew what else.

He'd thought of all the times he'd dropped shit on the floor in front of her, carelessly or just to amuse himself with her scrambling to clean it up. He'd thought of how much he used to hate hearing her in the other room, prattling on and on about her stupid fucking soap operas and would have given anything to have her there in his cell, chattering away, distracting him, just being another living human to lay eyes on and know he wasn't going to die alone.

He thought about the fear in her eyes when he held her down and shot her full of morphine. Every time he woke up and believed he might be dying, he thought, was this how she felt? How about this? How about now?

What he did to Harlan, that had been a matter of paper, glue, and patience. That happened at a remove, not even in the way Ransom intended, but in a dramatic, blood-spattered, self-administered coup de grâce that he knew in his bones his grandfather enjoyed. After the cancer scare of a few years before, Harlan had announced to Ransom that he had made peace with death. He'd prefer to stick around, mind you, but he'd lived a full life, and when the hour finally arrived, the old man said over a tumbler of contraindicated scotch, he had no fears about what lay on the other side. Knowing that helped grease the moral wheels as Ransom plotted his perfect crime.

But what Ransom did to Fran? It felt different. There was no triumph. No pleasure as he held her struggling body until it went limp. It was up close, and even though he didn't truly process the fear in her eyes at the time, he saw it. Later, as death edged him, dangling him over the abyss like Wile E. Coyote, he felt it. And understood it. And although he was an atheist before and after, he begged the universe at large to forgive him for what he'd done. He swore he'd make up for it, somehow, if only he could get better and get through his sentence and breath air as a free man. For a time, he would've settled for just breathing air. Just let him live, and he'd figure out a way to make it right.

Maybe something heard him. Maybe he just won the immune system coin flip, certainly wasn't through any significant effort on the part of the corporation who ran that correctional facility, but for whatever reason, one day, breathing wasn't so much of a struggle. A few days later, he was, well, not good as new. He was at least twenty pounds under the weight he'd been that fall. A three-minute walk to the cafeteria left him panting. The first time he actually tasted his applesauce again he came perilously close to tears.

As a well-behaved inmate with some level of presumed immunity, he'd been put to work in the hospital wing. He'd zipped bags. He'd learned up close what nurses did when they weren't keeping old men company with games of Go.

In time, modern medicine did its thing and the vaccines rolled out. An unconscionable amount of time later, the corporation who ran that correctional facility administered it. Time passed. More time passed. Ransom got strong, then stronger. He did his best to make good on the promise he made on the floor of his cell that dark winter. He made use of his cleverness.

He was, after all, Harlan Thrombey's grandson.

"Ransom?" Marta asked softly.

He snapped out of the memory and refocused on the present. On the face of the petite woman standing beside him, her soft hand on his bare shoulder. "Yeah. What was the question?"

She bit her plush lip, then asked, "Are you sorry for what you did?"

"Yeah," he said, voice hoarse.

"Do you intend to hurt anyone?"

"I've got no plans. Of any sort."

"Will you at least stay here for a few days?"

Covering her hand with his felt transgressive. He should just say yes, he knew that. He should say yes even if he didn't mean it, but something about the way she looked at him dragged the truth out of his throat, and he didn't think she was even trying. With a shrug, he confessed, "I don't deserve your help, Marta."

"What's that got to do with anything?" She squeezed his shoulder. "You need it. That's what matters to me, and I am not afraid of you. I know you, Ransom."

"That's a stupid thing to say." But he had to believe it, seeing as how she couldn't lie.

She scoffed at him. "Maybe you're not as complicated as you think you are."

"Maybe you're just naive."

"Do you really believe, after all that's happened, that I am naive?"

"I don't," he said slowly and clearly, as kindly as he could, "deserve your help."

"That may be true." She slid her hand from his shoulder and picked up the empty bowls in front of him. The spot where she'd been touching him felt cool without her. He watched as she rinsed the bowls and set them in the dishwasher. Finally, she said, "But will you stay here tonight?"

He shrugged, and apparently that was good enough for her.

"The groundskeeper gets here at eight. Breakfast is served at seven. You like blueberry pancakes, is that right?"

It was. He nodded. Then, his manners kicked in. "Thank you, by the way."

"You're welcome," she said briskly, not looking up as she continued to load dishes from the sink into the dishwasher. "The front guest room on the second floor is made up. You should give your knees a chance to scab up, take your shower in the morning."

"Marta?" He waited until she stopped and looked over at him. "Thank you."

Her expression gave him nothing. Pure placid shell of protective professionalism. "Good night, Ransom." She turned back to the dishwasher.

The path to the second floor guest room was one he'd trod more times than he could count. It was where he stayed the summer he worked as Harlan's research assistant. It was where he always stayed when he came here, from the time he was a little boy, scared by all the macabre decor and delighted by the flourishes like the hidden window. The scent that hit him when he opened the door, the same detergent, the same particular hint of mustiness, it all nearly overcame him with a feeling of homesickness. Except he was home.

Except he wasn't, was he? Because this was her home now.

His head swum with the length of the day and hairpin turns it had taken. He scrubbed his face with his hands and considered her ignoring her suggestion to skip the shower. Flopping face down on the bedspread was tempting. He'd hauled the quilt up here with him, he could just pull it over him and pass out. But more than exhaustion, he still felt dirty. The miasma of incarceration hung around his body. The thin, yellowed undershirt and threadbare boxers suddenly made his skin crawl and he couldn't shove them off fast enough.

Then, there he was. Naked.

The state was not unfamiliar. The view in the full-length mirror was. The mirror itself was one he'd preened in hundreds of times, an antique with beveled edges on the glass and baroque carvings in the polished walnut frame. But the view? You didn't get a lot of chances to admire yourself like this in prison, aside from the glimpses in the scratched up, smash-proof squares above the sinks in the communal bathrooms. He stroked his beard, which he'd seen enough times. Now, though, in the context of his refined surroundings, it looked more ragged than he remembered. Threads of white he hadn't noticed before stood out as he tilted his face this way and that to catch the light.

He turned and examined himself, spotted a couple of scars he'd forgotten about. No tattoos, except for a single, half-inch blue dash high on his right pec. Souvenir from the time half a dozen men who called themselves his kind tried to hold him down and mark him as part of their 'righteous brotherhood'.

The deepest marks, however, Ransom thought to himself in a hackneyed turn of phrase his grandfather would have laughed out of the room, weren't the ones you could see. He'd done things to keep the promise he'd made to the universe during his darkest hour. Things that might stretch the forgiveness of even the sainted Ms. Cabrera. 

The stairs squeaked and he froze, hand on his stomach, thumbing a still-purple mark he'd gotten last year in a chow hall scrum that had nothing to do with him. The floorboards outside his door squeaked and fell silent. She was just on the other side. If she knocked, would he say come in, see if the sight of him might get a rise out of her since nothing else had? Or would it just be pity filling her glistening eyes. 

The squeaking resumed and drew away, so he didn't have to make that decision. It ascended, then he heard it overhead. She slept in Harlan's room. That shouldn't surprise him, it was the master suite after all. But somehow it did. Had she redecorated? Nine years on, it couldn't remain some shrine to a man who'd be pushing 100 if he'd survived. Curiosity tugged at him. Curiosity and the novelty that he could leave this room whenever he liked. 

More squeaks, then silence. She must be in bed now. What was she wearing? A few possibilities flicked across his mind and in response, there was an answering pulse of heat in his groin. He saw the twitch of interest in the mirror and turned away from it. In an act that was part defiance but a larger part laziness, he padded naked out of his room and across the thick carpet to the bathroom that sat directly across the landing. After a long, satisfying piss, he eyed the sparkling clean porcelain of the oversized clawfoot tub and shiny chrome of the wide showerhead, with its attached hand-held nozzle and dial on the side that spoke of many luxurious settings. 

It was an upgrade from the simple nozzle with its powerful pressure he'd stood beneath so many nights here at the family home. He thought about how clean he could get under the hot spray. He could ignore her suggestion and take that shower, and the thought of unlimited hot water in a room with a lock on the door did tempt him. It wasn't like she could really begrudge him a desire to get clean. The scrapes on his knees weren't that deep, and he doubted there would be any consequences at all for disobeying her request. 

On the other hand, she'd done so much for him already tonight. The least he could do in return was follow her instructions and return to his deeply tempting bed. So he crossed the landing, flicked off the lamp and crawled under the covers. The light of the nearly full moon cast spidery shadows through the bare branches outside and onto the ceiling. He watched them shift and sway. Storm must have passed. 

His body was exhausted, but with all that had happened that day, his mind wouldn't stop racing. He knew of one surefire way to shut it up, but to be frank, despite the twitches of reflexive interest his body had shown in Marta that evening, he wasn't sure if he had the energy to finish. He decided to let his body make the choice for him. For a very brief moment, he reflected on the fact that jerking off to thoughts of his benefactor while under her roof, when she had shown his such kindness was...kinda shitty. 

But what went on in his head was his business, and he was well aware that she'd been the number one most reliable star of his spank bank over the last decade, for better and for worse. So, dispassionately, he ran through some of the fantasies he'd had about Marta over the years to see if any of them sparked a reaction worth teasing out to its inevitable conclusion. He perused the unexpectedly soft ones and the plainly pornographic. The violent ones. The ones where his brilliant plan worked out better than he could have hoped for. The ones where she sobbed for mercy. The ones where he did the same. 

He'd had a lot of time and at the beginning, a lot of anger. He'd also had an imagination his grandfather had complimented more than once. Not in his family's typical 'not living up to your potential why don't you make something of yourself you're better than this' schtick but with an authentic, if grudging, admiration. Though, Ransom was pretty sure Harlan wouldn't have approved of the use Ransom put it to all those nights, staring up at the sagging bottom of his cellmate's stained mattress.

Ransom didn't believe in ghosts, and it was a good thing too, because he was sure if Harlan could haunt him, he'd be a real pain in the ass. But he did have to wonder if Harlan were watching this right now, if he'd approve of Marta giving him this chance. If he'd be delighted at the awkward position it put Ransom in, or concerned for the safety of the soft-hearted heiress to whom he'd entrusted his legacy.

The prison library had gotten copies of her new editions. The old covers were always pieces of shit, if you asked Ransom. Harlan couldn't have cared less about the packaging of his precious words, especially since a Harlan Thrombey novel would top the best seller list if you swaddled it in plain brown paper. And Walt, well, Walt was cheap as fuck and wouldn't know good taste it bit him on his tightly-clenched bourgeois ass. 

Marta had commissioned a whole new set of covers from a diverse array of young artists. They were in turns sexy, provocative, abstract minimalist, candid-seeming photographs and intricately inked black and white cartoons. It wasn't a coherent aesthetic by any conventional definition, but somehow it all felt of a piece. It felt fresh and yet still perfectly suited to the stories, from the most recent ones to those first published when Kennedy was in the White House. According to a profile in an old copy of People that made its way to the library, the new paint job upped the sales of Harlan's back catalog more than forty percent, though the old man's scandalous death was thought to be a factor as well. 

And, in a move that must have had Walt grinding his teeth into stubs, she'd signaled a willingness to license film adaptations. Oh yes, things were going well for Ms. Cabrera, if the press was to be believed, the press that filtered its way into the prison, anyway. She looked good. She looked at peace. 

Why she'd want to fuck that up by inviting his damaged ass into her home, he couldn't begin to imagine. 

Ransom closed his eyes and decided that there was a right choice in this situation, and he was going to make it. He wasn't going to be the one to trip up this good thing she had going. A little charity was fine, but welcoming him into her life? That was a mistake. 

Did he have plans to take revenge on her, slowly destroy the life she'd built and make her regret the day she'd ever heard the name Thrombey? Sure. He had enough to fill a filing cabinet. Early on, he'd applied his imagination with a singular white hot focus, and some of his ideas made him sick to even think about. 

But now that he was out, did he want to execute any of those plans? No. Did he want to hurt her, also no. Did he know her odds for peace were better with him far, far away? In his bones, yes. 

So. 

Tomorrow he'd eat her breakfast and put on whatever clean clothes she provided, mutely play along with whatever plans she had for the day, then at his earliest possible convenience he'd slip away and get back to what he'd had planned when he'd stepped out of those prison gates not twelve hours earlier. Namely, finally become that self-made man his family members had always told him he could be. And oh by the way, figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do with the rest of his life. 

With that decision made, a tension inside of him softened. Despite the obscene acrobatics he'd pondered, his dick remained soft as well. And so, despite the fact that his mattress was too yielding, the house too quiet, the enormity of his options tomorrow too much for his mind to gnaw at, a few minutes after he shut his eyes he was still as a corpse, breathing deep and steady until the sun rose the next morning.


	2. Chapter 2

It was the bacon that woke him. The tantalizing scent of bacon and coffee and the sound of distant conversation rising and falling, the front door swinging shut, a kettle whistling. A soft, persistent scratching at his door. 

A peek into the hallway found Gordito sitting patiently, tail thumping, one leg splayed haphazardly out to the side. He panted up at Ransom expectantly. On the floor beside him lay a stack of neatly folded clothes, both his grey sweatsuit and a handful of other tops and bottoms, thermal underwear, and a new fleece-lined jacket. Beside that sat two large shopping bags with Wal-Mart emblazoned on the side. He fetched them from the hallway and didn't bother to stop the dog when it nudged its way in and past him, and with a heroic leap, jumped up onto the cushioned bench that sat in front of the bay windows. 

In one of the bags, Ransom found underwear and socks, still in their plastic packages. A toothbrush, deodorant, personal wipes, and a shaving kit with all the essentials. In the other sat a pair of tan work boots, white canvas tennis shoes, and a soft pair of bedroom slippers. The stack of clothes held an assortment of basics and from them he chose a stiff pair of button-fly jeans, a slate grey waffle knit henley, and a brick red v-neck sweater. 

The shower was his and his alone. He scrubbed down briskly, out of habit, then dried off before tucking the large, fluffy towel around his waist and returning to the room to dress. The dog watched intently as Ransom laced up his boots, and when Ransom headed for the stairs it dropped to the floor with a thump and a jangle from its collar, then trotted after him. 

At the stove, nudging bacon with a spatula, stood a squat, middle-aged woman in a green apron. She was saying something to Marta in quiet, rapid Spanish, but paused when Ransom stood in the doorway and cleared his throat. Marta sat at the kitchen island, hair in a sloppy bun, stack of papers next to a bowl of fruit, strawberry on a fork poised in mid air. She wore glasses with neat little rectangular grey frames, an oversized dark orange sweater that threatened to slip off one shoulder, cream-colored leggings, and calf length burgundy ankle boots that laced all the way up.

"Good morning," he croaked, voice still rough with sleep. 

The older woman stared at him as she set the spatula on the counter, eyes narrowing. 

"Good morning, ma'am," he said to her with a nod.

She muttered something under her breath, wiped her hands briskly on her apron, then said something at a normal volume, in Spanish, to which Marta chuckled and replied. 

Tentatively, Ransom stepped into the kitchen. 

Marta sipped from her mug and gave him an appraising look. "Good, they fit. Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah," he said, easing onto a stool. The dog jangled its way toward him and rested a chin on the toe of his boot. 

"I see you have a new friend," Marta said with a smile, nudging a plate of cinnamon rolls in Ransom's direction. 

He took a roll and bit into the pillowy sweetness with an appreciative groan. "No accounting for taste," he said, casting a glance down at the beast who whuffed softly up at him with hopeful eyes. 

"Do not fall for his bullshit," she said, breaking off a piece of bacon and tossing it to the dog, who caught it mid air and gobbled it down. 

A plate clanked down in front of him, laden with blueberry pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs and kiwi slices. The older woman scowled as she said something to Marta in Spanish, inclining her head at Ransom as she spoke. Marta rolled her eyes and replied, then said to Ransom, "Do you know how to chop logs?"

"That what she asked?"

"That's what I'm asking," she said, plucking a strip of bacon from his plate and taking a nibble. "Don't worry about her."

"I don't know, she looks pretty handy with that spatula."

"You're concerned about getting a spanking?"

He nearly choked on his mouthful of eggs, mostly at the thought of Marta administering that spanking. The woman set a tumbler of orange juice in front of him with the same force as the plate, sloshing some of it onto the counter. He took his time draining half of it, washing down the eggs and composing himself. "Ah, no. I'm not. And yeah, I can chop wood. Been a while, but it's gotta be like riding a bike, right?" 

Marta gathered her papers and squared them with a tap on the counter, then tucked them in a bag he hadn't noticed that hung from her chair. "Wonderful. This is Rosa, by the way, and Victor should be here any time now. He'll show you where the tools are. The storm last night took down a few trees at the back of the property. Good for firewood, he tells me."

"After it cures for a few months."

"Planning ahead never hurts. In any case, I must go into town." She stood, slinging the bag over her shoulder. "You will behave yourself?"

"Of cour--" he started, then realized she was speaking to the dog. 

She crouched to scratch the fuzzy creature's head and murmured something affectionate in Spanish, then rose and patted Ransom's shoulder. "You'll behave yourself, too?" she asked with a smirk. 

"I'll be a good boy, promise."

That earned him a grin. 

The older woman said something that sounded like an admonishment. 

Marta rolled her eyes. Then, plucking one more strip of bacon from his plate, she exited the kitchen. He admired the view as she left, then turned back to find the older woman scrutinizing him with narrowed eyes. 

He held up both hands in surrender. "I'm on your side with this, I wouldn't want me here either. This is good by the way." He pointed at the plate then gave her a thumbs up. 

She huffed and turned back to the sink, flipped on the faucet, then donned a pair of pink rubber gloves. 

He set to work demolishing the stack of pancakes. Conversationally, he added, "I'd ask you to talk some sense into her, but you probably already tried that. I'll be out of your hair soon enough, though, so you don't have anything to worry about." He sipped his coffee. "And I promise, she's got nothing to worry about from me. For what it's worth. Which isn't much, I know, but I thought I'd just put it out there, in case you understand English. Which I figure you might." 

She looked over her shoulder at him with an arched brow. 

"Not that my word is worth shit to you, I get it." 

She turned back to the dishes and he took his time finishing off his plate, then made sure his steps were heavy as he came around to the sink, so as not to startle her. He set them on the counter, and was trying to figure out what to do with himself until Victor arrived when a rattling truck made its way up the drive toward the house. With one soapy glove, she pointed at the wiry man climbing out of the cab, then made a shooing motion. 

*

Victor couldn't weigh more than a buck fifty on a good day, was a good eight inches shorter than Ransom, and had probably twenty-five years on him. Whether by choice or necessity, he communicated in short bursts of Spanish and a flurry of impatient gestures. Ransom followed him to the side of the mansion, noting the pile of firewood stacked beside the shed, under an olive-colored tarp, and a second, folded tarp on top, then a space along a different wall of the shed, beneath the overhang of the roof, presumably where Ransom was to stack the new firewood. Inside the shed, Ransom grabbed what Victor pointed at (an axe, a pair of yellow work gloves, and a wheelbarrow) and trailed behind him as they headed into the woods. They passed a wide old stump, one Ransom had sat on plenty an evening, getting drunk and avoiding family at one gathering or another. 

Close to the edge of the property, they stopped, and Ransom immediately saw what Marta had been talking about. One of the bigger oaks on the property lay on its side, soil-caked cluster of roots jutting high into the air, half-again as tall as Ransom. The trunk was wide enough two Ransoms couldn't have gotten their arms around it. Victor made a dismissive gesture at the oak, then indicated the half dozen or so smaller trees it had taken down with it. In rapid succession, he made a chopping gesture at the trees, mimed putting logs in the wheelbarrow, then gestured toward the house, a few more chops, then what looked like a reference to stacking the wood by the shed, all of which Ransom had already assumed was his remit, but he smiled politely and gave the man a thumbs up. 

Victor pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and lit one, and when Ransom didn't move, he made a get on with it gesture. Ransom grabbed the axe and, after a few swings, the older man seemed satisfied Ransom had some clue which end of the axe was which and ambled back in the direction of the house without another word.

Ransom took a moment to shrug off his new jacket. There was a chill in the air, but the sun hung just above the trees, hinting at warmth to come as the day progressed. The sky was clear, bright blue and a light breeze rustled pleasantly through the branches above, as well as the scattered leaves that still clung to them. He took a deep breath of the fresh air, then another, and felt something brittle and rusty inside of him begin to loosen. Whatever it was, it ached. 

He picked up the axe and surveyed the tangle of branches, evaluating his plan of attack and then went to work on the future firewood. 

* 

After depositing the fifth wheelbarrow load of thick logs by the stump, he took a break to wipe his brow and spotted Rosa on the patio, setting out a pitcher of something on one of the tables, along with a glass and a thermos. She was inside by the time he approached and discovered the pitcher held apple cider. A sniff revealed the thermos held strong, hot, sweet coffee. He sat and poured some in the mug that served as a cap, sipped while he took a second to catch his breath and watch a pair of fluffy clouds make their way across the sky. Two glasses of the cider were enough to slake the rest of his thirst and he got back to it, setting the logs on the stump one by one, splitting them, then adding two rows of firewood to the pile by the shed. 

He continued like that for hours, a few loads of logs, breaking them down with thwack after satisfying thwack, adding height to the pile, a glass or two of refreshment, then back into the woods. At one point a plate of ham and cheese sandwiches appeared and he gobbled them down before returning to work. By the time the sun descended far enough toward the horizon to touch the trees again, there was a pleasant ache in his arms and back. 

This wasn't so bad, he thought as he crunched through the leaves and underbrush once more. Maybe he could do another few days of this, allow Marta to indulge whatever impulse compelled her to offer him this charity, give himself breathing room to adjust to the outside world. He'd sleep well that night, he was sure of it. Besides, chances were she had a computer he could beg access to, and a little effort spent researching his options might prevent a repeat of last night's cold, wet mess. 

He still had his pride, of course. That'd been installed in him so deep and young he'd never truly be rid of it. But his decade inside had mostly cured him of the compulsion to act out of spite in some stubborn attempt to save face. So that was his new plan, and it felt good to have a plan, he thought as he pushed the wheelbarrow up the slope to what remained of the felled trees. 

Of course, you know what they say about making plans. 

As he set the wheelbarrow down and pulled the work gloves out of his waistband, ready to tug them on and get back to chopping, someone stepped out from behind a nearby tree. Ransom grabbed the axe and took a couple steps back. It took a second to recognize the man, the thin greying hair threw him off, as did the stoop in his once brash posture and the slight paunch pushing out the front of his sweater. But it took only a second.

Because the man lurking on the outskirts of the property was none other than Richard Drysdale, Ransom's father and all around piece of shit. Ransom lowered the axe. 

"Ransom," his father said with a nod. 

"Dick," Ransom replied. 

Silence hung between them long enough to make most people uncomfortable, but Ransom was well versed by then at keeping his mouth shut when he didn't have anything to say. And really, what was there to say to a man who'd neglected to visit or reply to a single letter the entire time Ransom had been incarcerated. 

Finally, his father spoke. "You look...well."

"What do you want?"

Richard broke into a familiar shit-eating grin, teeth too white in a face lined with new wrinkles and covered evenly in a tan that was entirely incongruous with a Connecticut November. "Is that any way to greet your old man?" 

Ransom rolled his eyes and turned to a half-demolished poplar that was thick as one of his thighs. He swung his axe and chopped his way through, ignoring his father's curious gaze.

"Who says I want anything?" Richard asked, leaning back against the trunk of the massive oak. 

Ransom shot him a look, then kept chopping. 

"Can't a guy want to take a look at his first-born son, make sure he's doing all right, maybe see if there's anything he needs."

Ransom scoffed. 

"Okay, okay, you got me." He held up his hands. "I mean I heard it, and I sure as hell believed it, but I had to come see for myself."

Ignoring his father wasn't going to make him go away, so with a performative sigh, Ransom turned to the man and said, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Richard grinned. "You and the señorita, shacking up. Kind of sloppy, don't you think?"

"Okay, fine. I'll bite." Ransom swung the axe hard, burying it deep in the wood, then took a step back and wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "Enlighten me."

"Oh come on. You can fool your mom, she's soft," a term Ransom would never in a million years apply to his mother, but whatever, "but I'm your father, I know you, and I know what's really going on."

Ransom crossed his arms over his chest. He was running out of patience. "And what's that, *Dad*?"

"The two of you are in on it. Have been from the start. It's obvious."

"Is it?" Ransom asked evenly.

"And look, I get it, I've been pussy-whipped in my day. I mean, she's a harpy now, but back at the start, your mother--"

"Nope. No thanks," Ransom cut him off. "I'm good."

"I mean, I've never been ten years worth of cunt-struck but that nurse certainly was one hot slice of tamale pie. Still is. You're lucky she didn't get fat while you were in jail."

"Prison, Dad. Not jail."

"You two almost got away with it too. Now if it was me, I wouldn't have taken the fall for some exotic piece of tail, but that fruity detective already had it mostly figured out, right? Didn't leave you a lot of options. If you both went away for it, bye-bye inheritance, so it makes sense you don't rat on your spicy little girlfriend." 

"You puzzle this all out by yourself there, champ?"

His father's grin grew sharp. "Like I said, I kind of get it. Her kind, they're...passionate, if you know what I mean. And let's just say, I might know *exactly* how delicious that particular slice of pie is."

It took a second for the implication to register with Ransom. He knew it was bullshit, but that didn't stop him from going hot with anger. "Are you trying to imply that you slept with Marta?"

Richard shrugged and just gave Ransom a smug smile. 

"Sure, Dad. Okay."

"What?" His dad asked, all mock innocence. "That doesn't make you angry, does it?"

Ransom pinched the bridge of his nose, summoned patience, then with a long-suffering sigh said, "Sounds like you've got it all figured out. That still doesn't tell me why you're here."

"Wellll," Richard drawled. "There are a few items in the house that I'm pretty sure Harlan would've wanted me to have."

"Harlan despised you. He was vocal about it."

"Regardless, it's just a couple little knick-knacks. Your girlfriend would never even notice they were gone. She left this morning, the housekeeper and the gardener drove away five minutes ago. Now, I'm feeling generous today--"

"Of course you are."

"So all I'm asking in exchange for keeping my mouth shut is twenty minutes in there and," he eyed the wheelbarrow, "let me use that and we're even."

"Keeping your mouth shut about what?"

"Your little scheme."

"With Marta."

"Yeah. And I mean, this is just some advice, but coming straight here kind of gives away the game, doesn't it?"

"The game where Marta and I were in on this from the start, and I took a plea deal for a decade of my life rather than flipping on her for a lighter sentence because I was just so hypnotized by her exotic pussy which, by the way, you have tasted? Do I have that right?"

"Fine. Ten minutes. Just look the other way."

If there was even a chance his father was telling the truth, it might have gotten Ransom's back up, but not in a million years would she have responded to his father's advances. Ransom could've told you that ten years ago. The fact that his father was lying so blatantly in order to stir shit up might have once gotten to Ransom, but of course in those years, he'd had endless practice not rising to bait. So it was with ease that Ransom just stared at his dad, utterly blank faced, until Richard started to squirm. 

"Five and I don't use the wheelbarrow."

Ransom snorted. "Yeah, I'll pass." 

Richard sputtered. "You can't *pass*."

"I think I just did. Wait, did Mom put you up to this?"

"Her? Hah. Like we're even talking."

"Walt then?"

"That moron? Hell no." 

Had his father always been so easy to read? "So wait, you're telling me you figured this out all by yourself, and didn't share your brilliant deduction with a single person?"

"I mean," he shrugged, "I may have speculated about it in front of a couple people, but this is all me. You're not the only clever one in the family. Now you just do what I said, and no one even needs to know I was here."

So easy to play? "You didn't tell anyone you were coming?"

"Of course not. What's with all the questions? Just, come on. Let's get going." He gestured in the direction of the house.

"Pass."

"Stop saying that! You don't have a choice here. I'm going in there whether you like it or not, and you can't stop me." He started to march past Ransom.

Before he had a chance to get far, Ransom grabbed him by the front of his coat and shoved him back against the nearest tree. "Can't I?" Ransom asked calmly. 

"That's assault," Richard barked. "Assault!" he shouted. "Help!"

"No, Dad. Assault is when you threaten someone. Battery is when you lay hands on them."

"Get," he smacked at Ransom's chest until Ransom took a step back and let him go. Richard straightened his coat and ground out, "I bet your parole officer would just love to hear about this."

A flicker of concern tickled the back of Ransom's mind, but he knew better than to show even a sliver of it on his face. "He's not going to hear shit. You're going to turn around and get the fuck off this property by the time I count to ten, or you're going to regret it."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, Dad. A threat would be if I reminded you no one knows you're here, and I know where the shovels are."

Richard blanched. "You wouldn't. I'm your father."

"Harlan was my grandfather. And all he did was threaten my inheritance. What do you think I would do to protect the woman I supposedly gave up a decade of my life for?"

"You'd choose that whore over your own father? Your own blood?"

And that? The combination of the slur against Marta, who had done fuck all to his father, and the appeal to the idea of _family_ , when his family were the ones who left him on the side of that road yesterday, it flipped a switch he thought he had better control of. The thought of beating the shit out of his father, even landing one good punch, it certainly held some appeal. But it would be the ammunition the old man needed to put him back inside, if he were feeling petty. And his father was nothing if not petty. 

So, in the interest of putting an end to this encounter before he did something really satisfying and really stupid, he took a step forward and got right in Richard's face. "Ten. Nine. Eight."

"Fine, fine, *fuck*," Richard scrambled away from him. "You'll regret this."

"Add it to the list. Six. Five."

"I'll tell everyone," Richard called as he hurried toward the low fence that marked the boundary between the grounds and the road. 

"You do that," Ransom muttered, fetching his gloves from the forest floor. He waited until he heard a car start up in the distance and rumble away, then turned back to the axe and pried it out of the fallen tree.

Ransom would be a fool to entirely trust his father's departure, so he gathered the tools and returned them to the shed. With more difficulty than he expected, he undid his boots and left them just inside the front door, then sat at the foot of the stairs and waited for the anger he felt to stop pounding in his head. He was better than this. He'd had a lot of practice not being provoked. His dad's weak attempts should be able to get to him as easily as they did.

Gordito trotted over and sniffed the muddy cuffs of his jeans. It wasn't until Ransom reached down and petted his soft head that his hands were still shaking with rage. He kept petting until the worst of it passed, then he headed up, changed out of the dirty clothes, took a quick hot shower, and pulled on something clean. 

After that, he plucked one of his grandfather's books from a shelf and sat on the front porch to keep watch, Gordito at his side, both of them waiting for the mistress of the house to return.

*

The sun was down, the colors of dusk just beginning to fade into inky night when he spotted the headlights making their way up the drive. It couldn't be too much past five, it got dark early this time of year. Marta got out of the neat little luxury sedan by herself, and paused with one hand on the door. "What are you doing out here?"

Gordito's head lifted from Ransom's knee and his tail started thumping aggressively. Ransom gave his chin a scratch. "Waiting for you." 

"Ah. You know you can wait inside. It's cold out."

"It's not bad," he said, rising to his feet. "Dry." 

"There is that," she mused. Opening one of the back doors, she said, "Come help me with these." In the back seat sat three Banker Boxes, and he hefted two of them, nodding for her to set the third on top. He followed her into the house and set them where she indicated, in the study. "Now," she said, shrugging off her coat and laying it across the back of a leather easy chair. "I have a confession to make."

"Oh?" 

"Yes, follow me," she said, heading in the direction of the kitchen. "As useful as you are for manual labor, I have to admit that was not the only motive I had for bringing you here instead of to Meg."

This, he had to hear. 

But no. Wait. He felt compelled to tell her what happened. He wanted, with a surprising intensity, to make sure she knew he wasn't withholding information. Keeping it a secret from her was feasible, probably even a smart move, to avoid upsetting her or making her suspicious. But this was her house. Her property. And he needed her to know he understood that, before she shared any confessions of her own. He didn't know why he needed it so badly, but he did. He shook his head. "Me first."

"You had ulterior motives too?" she asked, opening a cabinet and reaching on tiptoe for something on the top shelf. She couldn't quite get to it. "The glasses. Two of them please?"

He pulled them down easily and watched as she dug a corkscrew out of a utensil drawer. "No. I just...need you to know something." 

"Mm-hmm." She uncorked a bottle of red and gave them both a modest pour. "Well then I guess you should go first." She climbed onto one of the stools at the kitchen island, took a sip then gestured at him with the glass. "Don't keep me in suspense."

He took a sniff, then a sip, rolling it around on his tongue like the pretentious douchebag he was at heart, then swallowed, setting the delicate glass beside hers. He leaned a hip against the counter and said nonchalantly, "My father was here today."

"Oh." She took a sip and considered this fact. "Did you invite him?"

"Fuck no."

"Were you happy to see him?"

What a weird question. "No. It wasn't exactly a heartfelt reunion. He wanted me to let him in the house so he could steal some shit, I'm not sure what."

She didn't look upset or even concerned. More like he was telling her a mildly interesting anecdote at a party. "And what did you do?"

"I made him leave."

She patted his hand, and it took focus not to pull away from the casual touch. "Good job, Ransom. I'm proud of you."

"I didn't do it for you," he fibbed, bristling at her praise for no reason he could readily understand. "He's a prick."

"That's true, he is. But it doesn't matter so much to me why you did it. Only that you made the right choice."

"So my reasons don't matter?"

She waved at him dismissively and took another sip of wine. "I mean, of course they do a little. But you're a clever man, Ransom. We both know you can come up with good reasons to do whatever it is you already want to do. That's the easy part." 

"I'm guessing he'll be back."

"Probably. Even though I do have a restraining order against him. Your whole family actually, except for Meg. It took them all a while to grasp that the place was no longer theirs. I have an updated security system, but I'm not surprised he took a chance on you."

Something about the way she was so easy going about all this, it didn't rankle him exactly, but it did make him want to get a rise out of her. Equally casually, he said, "Restraining order, huh. What, you and him have a lover's spat?"

She sputtered, leaning back and staring at him like he had two heads. "Excuse me?"

"According to him, you two slept together."

"What? He...what? We did *not*."

He snorted. "Of course you didn't. He was just trying to make me angry."

"Why would that...I mean it's disgusting, but why would he think that would make you angry?"

He swirled the wine around his glass for dramatic effect, watched the legs form. "*That* would be because you and I are sleeping together."

It was her turn to snort. "Oh, of course we are."

"Have been from the start."

"Is that so?"

"Yup." He popped his P. "And you and I planned all this from the start. When we were also fucking." 

"Mm-hmm. You know, I can't be certain, but I think I would remember if I had sex with you."

"You would." He didn't mean it to come out so certain, but something about the way he said it set off a pretty blush in Marta's cheeks. The answering heat in his belly was probably just the wine, and he pushed forward, eager to move on before things got awkward. "He cleverly figured out that I took the rap for both of us and went away to protect you."

"And why would you do that?"

"Well obviously because I'm in love with you."

She nodded with an overly solemn look on her face. "Obviously."

He gestured at her. "I mean, how could I not be?"

"I already knew about his crazy theory, he's been blabbing about it to everyone who would listen since you went away. But in love with me? I didn't know the old man was such a romantic."

"He might not have used the actual words, 'in love'."

"Oh, so what actual words did he use then?"

"I think he went with..pussy-whipped?"

She broke into a grin and smacked his arm. "You're awful."

"What? I'm just quoting him. And believe me, I'm trying to pick the good stuff." 

"I appreciate your effort. And again, I am very proud of you."

"Stop." He didn't like the way her praise made his chest feel hot. 

"I am." She shrugged. "And I'm sorry, you'll just have to take it. You have no choice."

"What's next, gonna call me a good boy? Scratch my belly and give me a treat?"

She raised a brow, then glanced at the plate of cookies. Peeling back the Saran Wrap, she selected one, and held it out, inches from his lips. "Go on, you can scratch your own belly." 

The heat in his chest rose to his face, but he wasn't about to be the one to lose this game of chicken. Holding eye contact, he closed the distance and took a bite. He tasted maple and walnuts and dark chocolate as he chewed. 

When he leaned back, she extended the remainder of the cookie and gave him an expectant look. 

He took another bite. 

"There you go," she said softly, holding his gaze. 

He chewed and swallowed, and a few bites later, he was down to the last piece, held delicately between her thumb and index finger. Rather than do something stupid like let his lips touch her skin, he opened his mouth. She tossed the last of it in. "Good boy, Ransom," she teased. 

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't at least half hard. Not helpful. Not helpful, and not smart. He didn't need to fuck this up with that. He washed down the sweet crumbs clinging to his teeth then said, "Yeah, yeah. Anyway. News flash, my dad's a dick, I chopped a bunch of wood for you, what was it you wanted to tell me?"

She blinked and sat back, "Oh, right. Come take a look at what's in those boxes with me." She hopped off the stool. "Bring the wine," she called over her shoulder. 

He took a second to adjust himself, then picked up both glasses and followed.

With an indelicate grunt, she hauled a box off the stack and deposited it on one of the end tables. She flipped off the top, letting it tumble to the carpet, then reached in and pried out a few fat stacks of paper, each one held together by metal fasteners. 

Scripts. 

He looked at her. "Harlan hated the idea of his books becoming movies."

"That's not precisely true. At least not according to what he told me. What he hated was the idea of having to see someone do a bad adaptation, and he said that was as much luck of the draw as it was selecting the right people. That, and as far as he was concerned, there was no greater concentration of cocksuckers in the world than could be found in Hollywood, and he had no interest in dealing with a single one of them. He didn't mean gay people, he meant--"

"I know what he meant," he said, voice unexpectedly rough. The lilt that her accent gave the word cocksuckers, the slight emphasis on the second syllable, the shape her mouth made around the word 'cock'. It was...distracting. Above and beyond any personal baggage he had with Marta Cabrera, she was still a beautiful woman. More beautiful now, in his opinion. And it had been a long, long time since he'd touched a beautiful woman. He used to be pretty fucking fond of doing that. He cleared his throat. "Right," he managed.

"But he told me, 'When I'm gone, who gives a shit. Turn them into puppet shows for all I care.' So I finally decided, why not look into it. It's not like I need the money, but it is a *lot* of money."

"If that was the only reason, you'd have done it years ago. Why now?" He plucked the top script from the box. An adaptation of *It Sees You* by...his eyebrows shot up when he read the name, a screenwriter with more than a couple Academy statues under their belt. 

"My mother is getting old," she said. "She started reading the books after everything settled down, and got hooked. She's been bugging me for a while to let them do a movie, but it's hard to decide where to start. I know if they make a bad movie, well it's not like Harlan is here to see it. But I don't like the idea of disappointing him. And that's where you come in."

"Me?"

"He told me once that of all his progeny, you were the one who really got his stories. Really appreciated them for what they were, not what they could do for your pocketbook. He said you adored them."

He scoffed. "Adore is a strong word."

"It's the word he used. He said you couldn't get enough of them as a boy. Your mother got mad at him for giving them to you when she said you were too young for them, but he didn't care. He said you always asked him smart questions about them. Now, I like his books, but they were never really my thing. And my mother loves the stories, but she's not the sort to talk about why one works or all of the technical details. She just likes what she likes."

"Okay."

"She likes these stories, and she wants to see a movie of one or two before she dies. Also, she has many casting ideas."

He chuckled. 

"And I could just give this to someone else to handle, but that would feel like letting Harlan down. So I thought, why not let a whole bunch of people try. I spoke with my people at Blood Like Wine and it turned out, they'd been getting submissions for years. She said she would send some over." Marta gestured at the boxes. "That was last week. Then yesterday I got a call from Meg. I knew you were getting out. But I confess I didn't give much thought to how you would get home or where you would go."

He sat in one of the easy chairs and looked up at her. 

She continued. "But then she asked me to send a car to pick you up. She said she'd rented you a motel room for a couple nights, but she was out of cash and Joni...well she blames you for a lot that's gone wrong in her life since she lost Harlan's money. Said the rest of the family had the right idea. But I don't think what they did was right. You may be..." she paused and contemplated him for a moment. "What you are. Whatever it is you have become, but you are their blood, and you paid for what you did. To abandon you like that? I don't think it's right."

"Whatever the reason," he echoed from earlier in the conversation. 

"You might have been," she scrutinized him, "Other than you are. You might have still been angry at me, that's why I brought my driver. Then I found you, looking like a bedraggled gorilla. I could have brought you to Meg's motel room, but I thought maybe." She nodded to the scripts. "Someone who really loved Harlan's stories could help me with all this. If that's something that interests you. And also, help out around the property. Victor is getting up there. What do you think?"

He hesitated, entirely unprepared for her offer. "Why not ask Walt? I'm sure he has opinions, and he's not a convict."

She frowned. "He is a rude man. And Harlan always said he had no taste. I mean, not to be cruel, but you saw his covers."

"I saw *your* covers," he said with admiration. 

"Oh yeah?" she asked eagerly. "I didn't know if you, I mean, I donated them to your library for everyone, but I hoped...did you like them?" 

She honestly seemed to value his opinion. "They were fantastic. Harlan would've loved them."

"You think?"

"I know he would have," he said wistfully.

"See, this is why I made the right choice with you. Harlan always said you were the only one of them with any taste. And I'll pay you."

"Just like that."

"Why not."

"Letting a convicted killer sleep under your roof."

"You keep bringing that up like I somehow forgot."

"Some people might say it's a big risk."

"The fact that you're so concerned tells me it's less of a risk."

"People will talk."

She laughed. "Listen to you, people will talk. Like they haven't already."

Finally, he just up and said it. "I don't get why you're not scared of me."

In a scolding tone, she said, "Ransom. Do you want me to fear you?"

"I think you'd be stupid not to."

"That's not what I asked." She sighed. "And if you don't want to take my offer, just say so. I can drive you to the motel tomorrow, and I'm sure Meg can help--"

"I didn't say I didn't want to." He held the script to his chest. "I didn't say that. Relax."

"I am relaxed." She didn't sound relaxed. "Look, I'm a grown woman, and a good judge of character."

"I distinctly remember a time when I fooled you."

"Well, that's because you were a good liar. Maybe you still are. It's my risk to take." Her tone grew sharp. "So look, do you want the job or not?"

"I *do*." It came out angrier than he intended. 

"Well *good*," she snapped back. "Why are we fighting?"

"I don't know!" He threw up both hands. "You gotta admit, this situation is kind of weird."

"It is!" She sighed and said again, more calmly. "You're right. It is. It's like some bad sitcom."

With two fingers from each hand he drummed a rimshot on the script that lay on his chest. "Bah-dum-bump. Tchhh."

That earned him a smile that softened into something tinged with pity. "I'm sorry."

He didn't want her pity. "Why?"

"It must have been difficult, seeing your father like that."

"Whatever."

"He's a difficult man."

He scoffed.

"And then to learn he's fucking your girlfriend. I mean, that has got to hurt."

"You're hilarious," he deadpanned.

"Don't worry, it was purely physical. It didn't mean a thing."

"You're trying to make *me* vomit now? Is that what's going on?" He was laughing as he said it.

"He is a very gentle lover, Ransom."

He bent over and mock vomited, but then something occurred to him that brought him up short. Slowly, he sat up and fixed her with a deadly serious look.

"What? What is going on on your face?"

He set the script on the floor and leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped. Carefully, he said. "I thought you couldn't lie."

"I don't understand."

"If you lie," he said very, very calmly, "you vomit. And you just told me you fucked my father."

She burst into giggles. "You aren't serious." Then after a moment, "You are. Oh, Ransom. Look at how upset you are."

In a perfectly emotionless tone, thank you very much, he said, "I'm not upset."

She shook her head and stood, then approached. She paused next to him, hand on his shoulder, looking down as he stared straight ahead. "There is a very big difference between lying and joking sarcastically when the person you are speaking with knows you are making a joke."

"Is that so," he said, eyes fixed on the opposite wall.

He didn't see her hand moving, only felt her touch under his chin, gently tipping his head up until he was looking at her. "Yes," she said softly. "Now I am going to make us some dinner. You stop being silly and go through the scripts. Find me something good to read in bed tonight. Yes?"

He turned his head away and frowned. Not sulking, but not far from it. He felt stupid for even thinking it. Again, her fingertips found his chin and angled his face up until he had no choice but to look Marta in the eye.

"Yes?" She asked more firmly.

He swallowed. "Yes."

"Good boy." She gave his beard a playful tug, then she left his field of vision, floorboards creaking beneath her boots as she headed toward the kitchen.

*

He dedicated himself fully to the task, part to distract himself from the lingering horror that was the image of his father thrusting atop Marta, part because reading the scripts seemed like it would be intellectually stimulating, and part from the familiar comfort of completing a clearly given order. 

Of course taking orders from a beautiful, smiling woman rather than some bored, balding screw tickled at another sort of satisfaction, one that would be the dangerous sort of distracting at best, and at worst? Might tempt him into doing something foolish that would feel good in the moment, but jeopardize this good thing he got going, so he shoved those feelings to the back of his head and locked them up tight. 

Determined to work his way through at least one of the boxes, he set all three on the floor and sat next to them, removing his shoes and sitting cross legged as he extracted the scripts one by one, scanned the covers, and sorted them into the appropriate piles.

At one point Gordito ambled into the room and nudged Ransom's elbow until he got a few absentminded scritches, then lay down with a huff and rested his chin on Ransom's knee. Ransom lost track of the minutes, and even though he was dimly aware of good smells wafting from the kitchen, he was surprised when he felt Marta's nudge his shoulder. "Food," she said.

He looked up from the page of crackling dialogue to find she'd used her knee to nudge him, and that there was a tray resting on a nearby coffee table. On it sat a bowl of what looked, and smelled, like tomato soup, two grilled cheese sandwiches cut into triangles, a glass of milk, and a couple chicken drumsticks. Gordito's head perked up in interest and he snuffled the air.

"Not for you," she admonished, then gently nudged the dog on the hindquarters with the toe of her boot. He reluctantly rose and trotted out of the room. Marta headed back to the kitchen and returned a few moments later with another tray.

"You have him well trained," Ransom said, laying the script open in his lap and picking up one of the grilled cheese triangles.

"Just takes a little consistency," she said, picking her way across the carpet, careful to step around the stacks he'd laid out and taking a seat in a nearby wingback leather chair. She set her own tray on a low table beside the chair and picked up a mug. After a sip, she licked her lips, then said, "And he knows it's worth his while to obey me. I forgot to ask if you're one of those people who hate cilantro."

"Beggars can't be choosers." He dipped his grilled cheese in the bowl of vermillion soup and took a bite. It was, as every bite had been since his release, bliss. "I'm cilantro agnostic. This is good, though."

"You don't strike me as the begging type." She took another sip and surveyed the piles. "You've been busy. What's your system?"

"Big groups are the series," he said, gesturing at the piles with his grilled cheese, "Harry Benton, Croft Brothers, etc. Then by which book they're adapting. Through here," he pointed to about a quarter of the way across the stacks, "I read the first page and put the ones that grabbed me at the top of the pile, the ones that didn't on the bottom. Those," he gestured to the two sitting on the table beside her, "immediately stood out. Do you prefer more violent or less violent."

"I prefer a happy ending. How they get there doesn't matter so much."

"Hmm." He gave that some thought as he finished the sandwich half in another couple bites, wiped his butter-moistened fingers on the napkin that sat beneath the soup spoon, then took a couple gulps of milk. "Try The Badger then."

She nodded, sipped some more soup, then extended one boot clad foot and frowned at it. "You have the right idea."

"Hmm?"

"Shoes off."

He extended one leg and wiggled his toes in his thick wool socks. "Seemed appropriate."

"I got my nails done before I got home." She showed him one hand, with a neat, short french manicure.

He nodded.

"Would you mind?" She extended her foot toward him.

He set the script on his lap aside and crawled the short distance across the carpet to kneel at her feet, sitting back on his heels. He held out a hand, and as she set one foot in his palm, there was a weird flutter in his gut. He hesitated, and rather than shoving it aside, he took a second to try and identify it. It had happened a few times in the past twenty-four hours with her, and it was starting to bother him that he didn't know quite what it was. 

It wasn't anxiety, not exactly. Nor was it arousal, but it was close to that too. He'd had a few spikes of physical interest in Marta since she'd brought him home and he knew what that felt like. It was simple, physical, easy to name and readily dismissed. This thing, however. This hyper awareness-not of her or even of himself, precisely, but of some unnamable tension in the space between them. It didn't feel bad. It just felt...incomplete. 

She shifted in her chair. 

A "Sorry," spilled out of his lips before he could stop himself. He looked from her boot up to her face. 

She seemed perplexed. "What for?"

"I--I don't know. Never mind. For taking too long."

She gave him a wry smile. "I've got nowhere I need to be. Do you?"

He shook his head. 

"Take all the time you need." She held up the script. "I'm only two pages in, but I'm intrigued. You chose well. Good job." She turned her attention back to the pages. 

The flutter doubled at her word of praise, but he did his best to shove it away, hard, and got to work on his task. It took a minute to take care of the tight double knot, but then it was easy to free the laces from the hook eyelets and loosen them further down until he could tug the tongue forward. Cupping the heel with one hand and the front of her shin with the other for leverage, he eased the boot free of her foot and set it on carpet beside her chair. 

Inside her sock, her toes wiggled and she gave a nearly inaudible groan. "That feels so good," she murmured. 

He cleared his throat and made quick work of the other one, then crawled back to his former spot in the center of the stacks of scripts, ignoring the hot flush that was very easily identifiable as arousal. After he picked up the next script in the pile he'd been working on and situated it on his lap to hide his erection, then read the first couple lines half a dozen times without really processing the words, something occurred to him. In all the recent hustle, between the processing before his release and the twists and turns since, he hadn't had the time or energy to rub one out in nearly a week. That must be why he was having such a strong reaction.

He stole a quick glance at Marta, who had one sock-clad foot tucked up under her on the chair and all her attention focused on the script in her lap. A few images came to mind, unbidden, including one appealing one that involved dragging her off that chair, pressing her to the carpet, ripping a hole in those leggings and sinking into her balls deep as she wrapped her legs around him and murmured, "That feels so good," in the same husky, deeply satisfied tone.

Jesus, he had to get control of himself. He adjusted himself surreptitiously, then realized that he could either fight this distraction until she called it a night or he could give up and go take care of it. The latter option was infinitely more attractive, so he made a big show of yawning and stretching his arms overhead. 

"You must be tired," she said without looking up from the script. 

"I could sleep."

"Then go to bed. Leave everything where it is and we can pick up where we left off tomorrow." 

He rose with a stifled groan, muscled stiffened by a long day of use ached in protest. 

"You poor thing," she said. "There are Epsom salts in your bathroom, under the sink. I want you to run a hot bath and add a cup to the water. Soak for at least fifteen minutes before you go to sleep."

"A bath?" He asked skeptically as he stretched his hands toward the ceiling. "Seriously? Want me to add bubbles?"

"If you like." When he raised a brow at her, she asked, "What, do you not enjoy baths?"

"I, uh..." That actually took him a moment. "It's just been a while since I had one."

"It's been a while since you've had a lot of things, that's no reason to deprive yourself. And it will cut down on your aches tomorrow."

"I can handle a few aches," he said, collecting his shoes from the floor. 

"I'm sure there are plenty of things you can handle, Ransom." She dog-eared the script in her lap, then closed it and stood, approaching him until she stood toe to toe. In her socks, she was even shorter and he was acutely aware of how comparatively small she was. She had to tilt her head up to look him in the eye. "But it isn't in my best interest for you to suffer unnecessarily. Now, go on." 

He eyed the tray on the coffee table and moved toward it. "I should take care of these--"

"No," she said firmly, catching his wrist and squeezing. 

He froze. 

"I will take care of the dishes. You will go upstairs and run a bath. Understand?" 

He felt like he couldn't so much as inhale. "Mm-hmm," he managed to get out. 

"Good." She released his wrist. 

Air rushed into his lungs and as if on automatic, his body turned and he headed upstairs without another word. 

*

Fully submerged in the large tub (except for his head and his knees, which poked just above the surface) Ransom felt his muscles relax by degrees. For the first time in longer than he could remember, his mind was quiet. He felt pleasantly untethered from the many, varied, novel events of the day. Aware, but strangely unconcerned. For so long, his life had been on a loop, every day's routine mapped out for him, identical to the one before and the hundred before that. 

The moment he'd stepped outside those gates yesterday (had it really only been yesterday) the world seemed overflowing with possibility. Not that an ex-con, a murderer (and he was, despite plea deal for voluntary manslaughter his shysters had wrangled for him), a man who'd betrayed his family and more than earned their rejection had an abundance of options. But for the first time in longer than he could remember, his future was up to him. The world before him was nothing but decisions, a thousand directions, a million ways to fuck up his next move, and him without a map. 

Ransom reached for one of the washcloths stacked beside the tub and began idly scrubbing himself beneath the cloudy surface of the water. Part of the reason he hadn't gotten on that bus, or taken Robbie's offer of a ride, had been a misplaced optimism about his family. But part, he admitted as the washcloth dragged over his chest and stomach in lazy circles, was sheer contrarianism. There was the crowd, lined up neatly, filing in the expected direction, and here he'd been with the newfound option to say no. 

So he'd said no. 

He could have said no to this bath, he thought as the washcloth circled lower. He was clean from his earlier shower. He could have gone straight to bed and he doubted there would've been any repercussions. This didn't seem like the sort of thing Marta would punish him for. He wasn't even sure if there was anything Marta would want to punish him for, and if there was, he had no idea how she might punish him. 

The joke about spanking from that morning flitted across his mind. He let his imagination swirl around that possibility for a minute as he released the washcloth and palmed his soft cock. The thought of exposing himself like that to her, rear end stinging as her hand descended over and over, it provoked his curiosity, but no real heat, so he let his mind wander.

Various old reliable fantasies, memories of women he'd been with, obscene acts he'd coaxed them into performing, or been coaxed into performing, even just the generic concept of getting his dick sucked on, divorced from the question of who was taking him into their mouth...all of these thoughts shuffled past his awareness, but none of them stuck. 

Invariably, his thoughts returned to the lovely Ms. Cabrera. With all the time in the world to spend dreaming up scenarios, there wasn't a hell of a lot of undiscovered country when it came to spank bank material featuring the woman. None of his old reliables felt like they fit, though. The woman who starred in them was the ingenue Marta of a decade ago, her image faded, idealized, shaped into an exaggeration that suited his needs. A copy of a copy of a copy, occasionally refreshed with a glimpse of her in a magazine. He'd had one small photo, a page torn from a newspaper that got lost three years in during an aggressive tossing of his cell. After that, it was just his imperfect memory.

The Marta of today was different. Her face had slimmed out a little, her hips and backside thickened some, hair a few shades lighter and prone to tousled waves. No bangs. Lipstick a few shades darker than the natural look she'd worn when he knew her as a nurse and nothing more. She smiled more easily. Her accent was still there, but it had faded. But her eyes, those big green eyes were just as he remembered them. 

As he pictured her face, he finally felt himself thicken. Sliding lower in the tub, he held his breath and dipped his head below the surface, enjoying the way the water cocooned him, cutting him off from even the quiet sounds the great old house made. He heard nothing but the steady thump of his own pulse, felt nothing but the slow, gentle stroke of his hand along the length of his shaft. He kept going, waiting until his lungs ached before he rose, taking in deep, cool, lavender-scented gulps of air. 

At her suggestion, he'd added bubbles to the steaming, salted water. He liked her suggestions, he admitted to himself as he stroked. He didn't picture anything in particular, just enjoyed the sensation and privacy. Getting bossed around was something that had constantly rankled him during the first stretch of his incarceration. Ransom's whole life, no one had ever been able to tell him what to do. Then suddenly, stupid, petty men with uniforms that made them feel big told him when to stand and sit, when to shower and when to sleep. Come here, get over there, line up, get on the ground, shut the fuck up, answer me, look at me, don't you fucking look at me. 

Then, after a while, after his brush with death and coming to terms with the fact that this was his new normal, he grew to appreciate clear orders. More than a few of the guards seemed to delight in giving confusing, incomprehensible instructions, just to punish the inmates who couldn't figure out what they wanted. And even the ones who could. Sometimes the consequences were related to the infraction. Sometimes all that mattered was that the guy on Ransom's block had had a fight with his wife and wanted to take it out on someone who couldn't fight back. 

But clear instructions, given with no malice and no trickery, Ransom thought as he added a slow twist at the top to his pattern of down, squeeze, and up, down, squeeze, and up, twist, clear instructions were a relief. Set those boxes over there, Ransom. Go upstairs and take a bath, Ransom. Take off your wet clothes and put your cock in my mouth so I can warm it up, Ransom. 

That last one was a figment of his imagination, of course, but God did he enjoy imagining her green eyes blinking up at him as she gently sucked him and teased him with her hot, hot tongue. He shifted in the bath, aware that water was sloshing over the side but well past caring. His mind wandered and he discovered that the Marta on her knees for him felt good, sure. But the idea of him going to his knees for her? 

That felt electric.

The view of her legs from when he removed her boots was fresh in his mind. It wouldn't have taken much effort to grab her hips and haul her to the edge of the seat. Just a little help from her, the slightest lift of her ass and he'd have her leggings down to her ankles, knees spread, damp briefs clinging to the crease of her pussy. His hand sped up as he imagined her spreading her legs even wider. One manicured finger hooking the crotch of her panties and tugging it to the side, offering him a good look at the slick, flushed skin beneath. Her other hand palming the top of his head. Her scent so heavy he could taste it.

"Ransom," she'd croon in a soft, singsong voice. "Ransom," she'd repeat until he looked up and met her soft green eyes with his own. "Lick it."

He exhaled, hard and shuddering, tension rippling through his stomach and thighs, vision going starry and dark as his eyes rolled back, sensation gathering, drawing back for the punch then following through with a roundhouse. He clenched his teeth so hard it hurt, stifling his groans of pleasure out of well-worn habit. Only a single muffled grunt broke through as he pulsed jet after white jet into the bathwater.

*

"Ransom."

He startled awake, fully aware in an instant that he was still in the bath, the water had cooled, and he'd slumped down until his chin flirted with the waterline. 

A gentle knock, then another soft, "Ransom? Are you decent?"

With a slosh he sat up and eyed the water, bubbles mostly faded. "Does it matter?"

She scoffed, but didn't seem more than exasperated. The door inched open but she remained outside, out of view. "I forgot something I needed to tell you. My lawyer contacted whoever it was he needed to contact and let them know you'd found employment and a place to stay with me."

"How'd that go?"

"The bureaucracy is refreshingly unconcerned with the specifics of your situation, only that you have found yourself one. You have your first meeting with your parole officer tomorrow morning, only forty-five minutes away. I will drive you."

He'd known he would have to find the where and when of that soon, but knowing she'd taken care of it removed a burden from his mind that he hadn't known he was carrying. "Thanks."

"Did you fall asleep in there?"

Half a dozen smart retorts came to mind, but felt easy, felt good just to tell her, "Yes."

A long pause, then, "May I come in?"

"It's your house."

"I meant, are you decent?"

Rarely, he thought. But he also fished around the tub for the washcloth and held it between his legs with one hand. His other arm, the one closest to the door, he slung along the edge of the tub as he sat up straight and said, "More or less."

The door creaked as she entered. Cooler air from the hall rushed into the humid room, raising goosebumps along his arms. She leaned back against the door frame, hands clasped together demurely in front of her in a casual motion that pressed the soft flesh of her breasts together, slightly. She'd changed into pajamas, and beneath her thin, long-sleeved top, she clearly wore no bra. He forced his gaze from the outline of her nipples to her eyes. 

Casual expression fixed on his face, he inquired, "So what's up?"

Her gaze flitted from his face to his arms, to his chest, where it lingered. He glanced down. All he saw was dark, wet hair clinging to his pecs, and the short, crooked blue line just below his collarbone. "The tattoo?" he asked, looking up at her.

Her attention snapped back to his face. "What?"

He tapped it, letting the washcloth free in the water and lifting the knee closest to her in a concession to her delicate fucking sensibilities, or whatever. He'd been proud of his body, before. Sure, he'd started on third base with it, not unlike he had with his wealth, but it'd been the one thing he'd ever put consistent effort into. He'd sculpted it into exactly the sleek shell he'd wanted to present to the world, before.

After, it was a record both of what he'd done to make it as big and imposing as possible, and of things done to him. Not that he'd gotten the very worst of what prison had to offer, thank God. Not the shit his uncle had referenced with his don't drop the soap jokes after Ransom's sentencing. And the blows he'd earned before he'd learned to watch his mouth had left no permanent marks. Bruises, sure. And one of his wrists ached every time it rained.

But his scars, those he'd mostly earned from incidents he'd simply had the dumb luck to be present for, an unfortunate bystander to squabbles that had fuck all to do with him. Luckily, those incidents were few and far between, and mostly confined to his first couple years, because Ransom learned quickly. He'd learned when to be fast, and more importantly, how to read a fucking room. He'd learned how to develop alliances. Ones he chose, not the ones offered by the assholes who only wanted him because of his WASP-ass bloodlines and a face that looked 'like a Nazi's wet dream'.

Robbie's turn of phrase, not his. 

Over time, over years, Ransom's body responded to his discipline. His muscles grew. His reflexes sharpened. His bluster dissolved and his ruthlessness solidified until he became somebody no one wanted to hassle. A body that no one with any sense would fuck with. 

The line on his chest was from about three years in, an incident with some people who claimed he had a kinship with 'our kind' and didn't take ''yeah, I don't wanna join your little Nazi coffee klatch, thanks, fuck off" for an answer. One that had resulted in him discovering a new level of ruthlessness he hadn't known was there. Not in the moment, though. 

No, in the moment luck and adrenaline conspired to allow him to struggle his way free of the three men before they got a chance to lay down more than that one line of ink. The ruthlessness came after, with each of the men individually, when they were alone, in a manner that couldn't be traced back to Ransom. Not unless someone stumbled upon them in a dim back corner of the laundry room, after hours. 

Which was how he'd met Robbie, shortly after he'd taken care of the third Nazi fuck. Ransom Drysale had been washing his bloody hands in a sink. Robbie Drezner had been looking for the pack of cigarettes he'd stashed on top of one of the pipes that ran along the ceiling back here. Ransom and Robbie had lined up together more than once, by virtue of their last names, but they'd never exchanged words. 

Robbie'd glanced at the body, then back to Ransom. Ransom had frozen, stuck in a flashback to that moment when he knew Fran had caught him. Before Ransom had a chance to decide what came next, Robbie'd gone up on his tiptoes, grabbed the pack, extracted two and lit them with a few cheek-hollowing puffs. After nodding at the body of the Nazi fuck Ransom had spotted hassling the visibly Jewish, audibly gay man more than once in the cafeteria, Robbie said, "Good. I'd spit but, you know, DNA." He held out one of the cigarettes to Ransom. 

Ransom had turned off the water, wiped the knob with the sleeve of his uniform, then paced over to Robbie. "Smart move," he'd said warily, taking the smoke and enjoying a long drag. 

"Had you pegged for one of them when you got there." 

"Got one of those faces."

Robbie'd given him a quick once over, arched a brow and said, "Got one of those everything."

"How 'bout you save the flirting for somewhere with less dead bodies."

"Fewer," Robbie'd replied. "And you're not my type. But you do make a good point. See you later, Franz."

A couple days later, Robbie'd dropped into a chair beside him in the TV room and asked, "So, you really Harlan Thrombey's grandson?" 

Ransom had barked a laugh loud enough to make a few inmates turn and shoot him a glare. In a whisper, he'd said, "Unfortunately."

Equally quietly, Robbie'd said, "I'll keep my mouth shut, you know."

"I figured."

"As far as I'm concerned, you've done the people of our fair city a favor."

"What am I, fucking Batman?"

"Batman's rich, honey."

Ransom had snorted. "Point taken." 

Robbie had narrowed his eyes and assessed Ransom's face. "And not the superhero that comes to mind."

"You flirting with me again?"

With a mock huff, Robbie'd said, "Don't get any ideas, I'm taken." He'd held out his left hand, displaying a slender tattooed band around his ring finger. 

Ransom'd clutched his chest and said, "You're breaking my heart here." Then, "But we're good. You got no worries here."

After that, they'd become sort of friends. Then actual friends. Ransom hadn't made a habit of doing the people of their fair city a favor, but the opportunity did present itself on more than one occasion. Most of the guys Ransom was locked up with just wanted to keep their head down and do their bid. But a few took a very special interest in hurting those weaker than themselves. And a few of those were cruel and blatant enough they disrupted the status quo and caught Ransom's very special interest. 

For the most part, he avoided fatal shit. It was enough to get troublemakers sent to the hospital wing or protective custody for a long, long time. They never saw it coming, and they never saw Ransom's face, because Ransom was clever and patient and, in Robbie, he had an accomplice. 

It happened maybe half a dozen times in as many years. Neither of them had ever been a suspect. They'd been cellmates the last few years, and although they hadn't made any plans to look each other up on the outside, Ransom knew he would want to track his friend down after his own life got settled, just to see how he was doing. Meet the famous Trent, long-suffering husband extraordinaire, he of the fabulous care packages. 

"Oh, no," Marta said, snapping him back to the present. "I didn't--you have a tattoo?"

He sat up in the tub and turned toward her, tapping the line with an index finger. 

She came close and crouched by the tub, squinting at it. "Is that...what is that?"

He considered telling her the truth. Then, he considered how the pity or revulsion or both in her eyes would make him feel. So he said simply, "I got bored. Then I changed my mind."

"Huh." 

He was acutely aware of how close she was, her steadying hand on the rim of the tub a hair's breadth from his shoulder. Close enough he could turn his head and kiss her knuckles. Which would be weird. "Anyway," he said, to break the spell. 

"Anyway," she said, standing.

"Meeting tomorrow morning?"

"Quarter to eleven. I'll, uh." Her cheeks were flushed, he noticed. "I'll see you in the morning, Ransom."

"Yup," he said, popping his P.


	3. Chapter 3

Ransom's parole officer was a stone-faced middle-aged man with dark circles under his eyes, a smoker's cough, and a calcified air of boredom that Ransom had no intention of disturbing. He took in the man's terse litany of expectations and prohibitions, offered brief, polite answers to the checklist of questions, and every time the man paused and examined Ransom's face, Ransom held his gaze. 

"Now as for your drug and alcohol test," the man muttered, leafing through a manila folder. 

Ransom's expression didn't flicker but his heart stuttered as he remembered the wine from last night, cursing himself for being so sloppy. This man didn't seem the type to be interested in excuses, so at this point, he was either fucked, or he wasn't. He took a deep breath.

"Relax," the man said. "It's my policy to skip it on the first meeting. In my experience, mistakes" —he glanced up pointedly then returned his attention to the file— "happen first week out. And contrary to what you might think, I'm not here to trip you up and send you back. That's more paperwork for me. Moving forward, no booze, no drugs, no fuck-ups. Follow the rules, keep your nose clean, and we don't gotta have a problem, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir."

Then, something caught the man's attention in the file. He squinted at it, shuffled back a few sheets, then forward again. After extracting a pack of nicotine gum from his top drawer, he popped out two chicklets, chomped on them as he made a few notes, then looked up at Ransom with the first hint of curiosity he'd exhibited all meeting. "Huh." He glanced up at Ransom and held his gaze.

Ransom looked right back, mouth firmly shut. He knew better than to offer information or explanation in the absence of a direct question. 

"Lot of times," the man said finally, "family connections are what keep a man out once he's out. The woman you're staying with, she's got orders of protection on, what, all of them?"

"Most of them, sir."

"Says here you tried framing her for what you went away for."

Ransom blinked, not expecting the left turn. "Yes, sir."

"And now, she's giving you a job and you're staying with her."

"Yes."

The man's eyebrows climbed upward, toward his non-existent hairline. ""That gonna be a problem, you think? You living with her?"

"I hope not."

"You hope not?" He sat back in his chair and chewed aggressively at his gum. "You got any other options, in case this doesn't work out?"

"I'll do my best to make sure it works out, sir."

"Hmm." He gave Ransom a dubious look, ticked off a few more notes, then closed the file and stuck it back in a filing cabinet behind him. "Got any questions for me?"

"No, sir." 

"You plan on making my job hard?"

"No, sir."

"Good. See you in two weeks. Get out of here."

*

Outside the shabby little building, snow had begun to fall. Ransom zipped his jacket, shoved his hands in his pockets, and as he waited for Marta to return, he surveyed the main street. Nearby, a few municipal workers in a cherry picker hung a large, semi-abstract decoration made of red tinsel and white lights in the shape of a gift box from a streetlight. Small clusters of shoppers tromped footprints through the virgin white powder that coated the sidewalks. Somewhere near, Christmas music trickled out of a storefront and Ransom found himself thinking back to holidays spent at his grandfather's mansion. 

He leaned against the brick and let his eyes sink shut, engaging in a habit he'd picked up inside. He tried to reconstruct a memory in as much detail as possible, a detective investigating the crime scene for clues. His mother's sharp, mineral perfume mixing with the scent of the stuffing the old housekeeper, Fran's mother, used to make, with too much sage. The prickle of the pine needles, which always found their way to the floor and into Ransom's socks. The carefully color-coordinated scarlet and gold foil wrapping of the presents his mother and father brought, tucked under the tree beside the eco-friendly recycled brown paper favored by Joni. 

Harlan slipping him sips of brandy, the warm feeling in his stomach and limbs as he dozed on the floor by the fireplace, half-listening to the adults sniping at each other. The hot shame of feeling like he'd done something wrong, but he wasn't sure what, when he stumbled on his father and Joni in one of the guest rooms, hugging. But were they hugging? He struggled to recall more details, but even as he tried to grasp at it, the memory smudged further. 

Whatever words his father had used to chase him from the room were lost to time, he only remembered the sharp anger in Richard's tone, and the way he'd hidden in a closet upstairs, finally falling asleep, only to wake to his mother standing over him face twisted with disapproval. They'd been looking for him, she scolded in a clipped, icy tone. The family had nearly called the police. Ransom had nearly ruined everything with his foolish, attention-seeking games. He'd been made to come downstairs and apologize to everyone. Joni had watched him carefully, biting her lip, eyes wide. His father hadn't looked him in the eye the whole time, attention fixed on the tumbler in his hand. 

"I'm sure the boy had his reasons," Harlan had said, leveling a curious gaze at Ransom. 

And he had. He'd wanted to escape the anger from his father that he didn't understand. He'd wanted to escape the strange certainty that he'd done something wrong. And standing in front of the eyes of his entire family, he'd wanted more than anything to escape their scrutiny, say something that wouldn't set off another fight, and he knew that the truth wouldn't suit those purposes at all. So he'd lied, smoothly crafting a story about how the present he wanted wasn't under the tree, judging by the shape of the packages, so he'd gone hunting to see if there were any gifts hidden upstairs. 

His mother had bought it. Joni had relaxed back into the green velvet couch. His father had met his eyes and given him an imperceptible nod of approval. His grandfather's sharp gaze had shifted to his son-in-law and daughter-in-law and back to Ransom with a knowing smirk. Harlan missed nothing. And yes, Ransom remembered now, it was then, after the discussion had started back up, that Harlan had snuck him the brandy, not before. Ransom had fallen asleep with a strange mix of feelings in his stomach. Pride in having thought up the lie so quickly, shame at feeling he'd done something wrong when he'd walked in on his father and Joni, resentment simmering beneath it all because he knew on some level they were the ones doing something wrong, but telling the truth about that would only make things worse. Certainty that even if he did tell the truth, no one would believe him, because he'd lied to get out of trouble plenty of times before. 

The scent of Joni's patchouli clinging to his father's sweater when his mother made him hug everyone good night. The nervous edge to Joni's laughter the next day when she'd slipped him a neatly rolled joint, told him it'd be their little secret, and Jesus, Joni, he'd been what, eleven? The itchy collar on the suit he'd had to wear for the family portrait. The heavy silence between his mother and his father on the drive home. 

"Ransom?" 

He inhaled sharply, coming back to the bright, snowy main street sidewalk. The gentle warm pressure of Marta's hand on the sliver of bare wrist that peeked out between the jacket cuff and the pocket where his clenched fist was buried. "Yeah." He cleared his throat and looked down at her. Marta's cheeks were rosy and her nose was pink from the cold. "Hey."

"How'd it go?" 

"Seeing him in two weeks." 

"Good," she said with a soft smile and a squeeze of his wrist. 

His fists unclenched. 

*

By the time they made the last turn to the house, it was coming down hard. The winding drive was buried under a blanket of smooth white, no one in or out in the last couple hours. Twice, the tires slipped as they came around a curve, and the second time, Marta shot him a nervous smile. "I told Rosa and Victor not to come in today, it's supposed to get nasty later on."

"Guess I'll have to cancel all my plans," he said as the house came into view.

"What plans?"

"It's a joke." 

"You're allowed to make plans, Ransom."

"It's a _joke_ ," he said with more edge than he intended. "Who am I gonna make plans with?"

Gently, carefully enough it pissed him off, she said, "Anyone you like. Friends--"

"Yeah, wouldn't call what I had before friends, and they sure as fuck didn't stick around."

"Family, then."

He scoffed. 

She pulled to a stop in front of the front door and put the car into park. "Meg's been asking about you. I told her you were settling in. She'd like to come visit. Maybe this weekend if you're up for it?"

He laughed bitterly and unclicked his seatbelt but didn't open the door, just stared at the front steps of the house, blanketed in pristine snow. "Why?" he finally asked.

"Why does she want to visit? I wouldn't presume to know the answer. You can ask her if you--"

"Yeah, I _know_ ," he snapped, unsure where this swell of anger was coming from and uninterested in stopping it. It felt familiar. It felt safer than the confusion and vulnerability and whatever the fuck else it was bubbling up inside him with no reason he could put a name to. "I meant..." He stopped and closed his eyes, not to calm the anger, just to feel it wash over him. 

Her chilly fingers came to rest, feather-light, on his wrist. "What's going on?"

Fuck off, he thought. And, none of your goddamn business. And, I don't fucking belong to you. And, I don't belong to anyone, a thought that came less with defiance and more with a strange tinge of sadness. He took another breath and schooled his features into a neutral mask that served him well for years on the inside. "If I knew, I'd tell you," he finally said, turning for the door handle.

Her grip firmed up on his wrist and she tugged it back to the center console, pressing it down to the plastic and covering his hand with her other one. "No, say it."

"You calling me a liar?" he asked with an empty grin.

"If you don't want to see Meg--"

"That's not it." The snow was accumulating on the windshield, slowly obscuring the view of the house "I'm fine." He started to pull his hand away, but she tightened her hold on him. He could break her grip, of course. Break her wrist. Break her neck. He didn't like that these thoughts came to him. It wasn't that he wanted to hurt her, or even see her hurt, only that he felt intimately, suffocatingly aware that he could. What he didn't understand, and it was a mystery he could only ignore so long, was what her real motivation for helping him was. And he didn't trust people whose motivations he couldn't suss out. 

She sat there, all patience and wide, curious, sage-colored eyes, and it didn't disgust him, exactly. It just made him feel unsettled. Unworthy. Disappointment, insults, smarmy proclamations that it was common knowledge Ransom Drysdale would never amount to jack shit, all that he could deal with easily. He'd had a lifetime of practice. But this, he just couldn't trust it. Whatever the fuck this was rolling off her in gentle, encouraging waves, it made his skin crawl. When it wasn't making him pathetically thirsty for more. He licked his lips and turned to look out the passenger side window. She patted his hand encouragingly. 

He finally yanked it away and crossed his arms over his chest. "You get off on lost causes, that's it. Am I wrong?"

"I--I don't understand."

"Or is this your way of sticking it to them?" 

"Who, your family?"

"You took everything that was actually worth something, why the fuck would you want to take me?"

She shook her head and turned to look out her window for long enough that Ransom glanced over. Her normally full lips were pressed together in a tight line, and both her hands were curled around the steering wheel, knuckles white. "I didn't take your family fortune. I was given it."

"Yeah, and you were pretty fucking quick to take what was given."

"I took what you," she crossed her arms and turned back toward him, "what _your actions_ gave me, Ransom. Harlan changed his will all the time. You knew that. I know you did, I read about it in his journals." 

Her sharp, bitter tone felt so much better than the sympathy. It felt familiar. He wasn't proud of the fact that he enjoyed pissing her off, but Christ it felt good. "Yeah? That what this is then? Payback for making you a millionaire?"

"Are we really back to this?" She sighed and rubbed at her forehead with one hand, other arm still tightly wrapped around her middle. 

"Back to what?" 

"The...the self-pity? The lazy attempts to sabotage--"

"Self-pity?" His voice jumped an octave. 

"Yes," she said firmly, taking the keys out of the ignition. "It's unattractive."

"So that's why I'm here? To be attractive? You having trouble getting laid?"

"Don't be crude."

"When was the last time you got some, Marta?"

The fire in her eyes flared, then softened into something sad, and maybe a little wounded. "What is it you're aiming for with all this provocation, Ransom? Do you even know? Or are you just angry at everything?"

"I don't have any _aims_ Marta," he said, volume steadily rising. "I don't have any plans, I don't have any fucking," He gritted his teeth and raised his fist to punch the dashboard but held back at the last second and forced his hands open, planted both palms on the dashboard instead, breathing deep. Head bowed. "I don't have anything," he ground out. "Except your fucking charity, and I'll fuck that up soon enough, so let's just get it over with, okay?"

With a shrug, she said, "Okay." 

He lifted his head and shot her a confused look. "What?"

She dropped the keys in the cupholder. "I'm not your jailer, Ransom. If my charity is such a burden, you're free to go. Take the car."

"You want me to go?"

It was her turn to wear an unreadable mask. "Would it make it easier for you if I said yes?"

He swallowed and sat back. He might not be able to read her face, and he might not trust her motivations, but he did have one thing he could trust when it came to her, that he didn't have with anyone else. He knew she couldn't lie to him. A familiar hot rush of shame rose inside of him, crowding out the anger and the petulant self-pity. He felt pathetic, but he needed to know the answer. He needed to know the truth, so he asked her, so softly he barely heard himself, "Do you want me to stay?"

"Yes."

"Why?" It came out as an embarrassing whine.

"Is there any answer I could give that would satisfy you right now?"

"Probably not." He groaned and scrubbed at his face with his hands. "Christ, I'm sorry."

"Did something happen at your parole meeting?"

He shook his head. "Not really."

"Look." After a pause, she laid a hand on the back of his neck. Her fingers found the strip of skin between his collar and his beanie, and the icy jolt centered his attention. She squeezed, and the swirling mess of unwanted emotions just...fell away. He became acutely aware of the silence in the car, no more engine ticking, world outside muffled with the blanket of snow. Nothing but her quiet breathing and his own heart thumping in his chest. "Ransom. Look at me." 

He looked at her. 

"I want you to stay. I want you to help me find the three best scripts and then help me understand why they are the best. I want you to keep me company in this big old house. And most of all, I want you to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Because it is very unattractive."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "So I _am_ eye candy." 

She snorted. "With that beard? No."

He gasped in mock offense. "You don't like my beard?"

"You're prettier without it."

"Yeah, 'pretty' wasn't really what you would call an advantage on cell block F."

"You're not on cell block F anymore, are you?"

"You saying you'd like if I got rid of it?"

Her thumb stroked the back of his neck, just once, and his breath caught in his chest. With a gentle but firm squeeze, she said, "Shave your face, Ransom."

He swallowed and cleared his throat, but his voice still sounded rough when he replied, "Yes, ma'am." 

Something flickered in her eyes, but before he could identify it, she was slipping out of the car and making her way across the lawn and into the house. 

*

At her request, he took Gordito for a walk, which mostly involved nudging the fuzzball off the couch and following him out the door with a plastic bag and a handful of paper towels. Gordito seemed dubious of the snow, eyeballing the chilly, white-dusted landscape of the front drive and nearby lawn and plopping his bottom on the porch, then looking at Ransom expectantly. 

So Ransom swept the path for the short-legged boy as well as a small patch of ground for him to piss on. Gordito still seemed reluctant so Ransom made ridiculous noises of encouragement until the dog finally took a leak and a hunch before racing back into the warm house. Ransom bagged up the shit, something he would have turned his nose up at in his previous life, but after 18 solid months of bathroom duty in a men's prison, he didn't bat an eyelash.

After tossing the bag in a trash can inside the shed, he grabbed a snow shovel and a regular shovel, more durable for the icy drifts he expected to deal with tomorrow. There were only a few inches on the ground at this point so it was easy to clear the steps and a wide path to the car. Then he tossed a tarp from the shed over Marta's car, if it freezed tomorrow it would prevent the headache of chipping ice.

When he got back inside he found her on the phone in the kitchen, speaking to someone in Spanish, her mother judging by the number of times he heard an exasperated "Mama,” followed by a fond eye roll and a glance in his direction. Yet another person reminding her that this setup they had going was kind of nuts probably, but it didn't ping bad feelings like it had before. Something about their conversation in the car had popped that bubble at least for now.

He put on the kettle for tea and made her a mug, felt a flush of satisfaction at her mouthed 'Thank you,' when she took it from him with a smile. As he picked through scripts in the den, one from last night and two others that showed promise, he heard that call end and another begin, this one in English with somebody at the publishing company. Something about overseas rights and a mix up in Eastern Europe. Ransom turned his attention back to notepad he'd been using to log the scripts and jot down shorthand notes. He was on his second page, when he noticed how cold the den had gotten. It had always been one of the draftiest rooms, unless a fire was blazing, and Marta was still on the phone, so he got up, stretched, and headed to the foyer to pull on a coat.

Once outside, he took his time heading out to the shed and enjoying the approach of dusk, took a brief walk along the tree line, gathered up wood and then built a solid fire in the den. She was still talking when he finished that so he headed upstairs to complete his assigned task.

His shower was long, relaxed, and although he was half aroused at the memory of her hand on his neck he didn't do anything about it. Standing in front of the mirror, towel wrapped around his waist, beard that he'd only done the bare minimum of trimming over the last year staring him in the face, he took a long look at himself. He ran his fingers through the thicket of hair, darker than on his head if you didn't count the threads of white scattered throughout, and the patch near his left ear that was decidedly salt and pepper. 

He spread one of the hand towels in the basin of the sink, pulled a small pair of scissors from the shaving kit that had been part of the supplies she gave him on his first morning and got to work.

*

He entered the kitchen to find her at the stove, scraping a pile of white onions into a sizzling pan. The rice cooker was lit up, steam rising from the little hole in the lid. Sliding onto one of the stools, he watched her and gave himself a moment to enjoy the domestic scene.

"Get whatever you want to drink," she said, poking at the sizzling pan.

"Mm-hmm," he said, in no particular hurry to slake his thirst. He just watched. He enjoyed the way her body moved as she efficiently performed the tasks of cooking. He ignored thoughts of how lucky he was in this moment, because all that would lead to would be more thoughts of when his luck might turn and he didn't want to sour this pleasant mood.

"Actually," she said, wiping her hands on a dishcloth tucked into her apron, "If you could--" She stopped, eyebrows shooting up, and stared at him. 

He lifted his eyebrows in reply.

Slowly, with the strangest expression on her face, she approached. She seemed almost wary as she came around the corner of the kitchen island. As she got close, he instinctively spread his knees to allow her to step that much closer and when she reached up to touch his cheek, eyes wandering his face, really examining it, he couldn't help but hold his breath.

The tension became too much as her fingertips traced his sensitive jawline, which still tingled from the menthol of the shaving foam, and he said with what he hoped was an easy smile, "What? Not pretty enough?"

"No, I just... never mind." She turned away.

"No, tell me." 

"It's only that I'd--I'd forgotten how handsome you are."

From anyone else it would feel like flirtation, a tease. From her, of course, it felt like the truth. Her truth. Heat rushed over him, bodywide, but he managed a careless smirk. "Stop, you'll make me blush." 

"We wouldn't want that." She turned back to cooking.

"That gonna be a problem?" he teased, enjoying the view.

"Is what?"

"Me being so distractingly handsome." 

She shot him an exaspirated look over her shoulder. "I wouldn't say that." 

"What would you say then?"

"I would say fishing for compliments isn't attractive."

He batted his lashes at her. "And that should be a priority? Attracting you?"

With an eyeroll, she turned back to the stove. "I wouldn't say that either."

He felt like he was on thin ice, despite the lightness of her tone. "Last thing I wanna do is make you uncomfortable." After a beat, he continued, "With my attractiveness. I can grow the beard back if you prefer."

She poured a bowl of pretzels and set it in front of him with a glare, then grabbed two beers from the refrigerator and popped off both caps. 

"Ah, yeah." He debated just saying no thanks, but that urge to share with her flared up again, that need to not keep secrets from her. He didn't quite understand it, but it was a harmless enough impulse to give into, so he said, "I got drug and alcohol tests with the parole officer. Sorry." In response to her alarm, he held up a hand and said, "Don't worry, he gave me a pass on the first one."

"Nice guy," she said, visibly relaxing.

He shrugged. "Didn't seem like a total dick." When she set a cola in front of him instead, he took a sip. "Asked if this was gonna be trouble."

"If what was?"

"Me being here." At her questioning look, he added, "because of my attractiveness."

She rolled her eyes.

"Kidding. No, just, you know. Us. Being _here_."

She gave him a strange look. 

"After everything that happened. Our history. He wanted to know if I thought it would be a problem." 

"Ah. And you said?"

"That I'd do my best."

Seemingly pleased, she came over and patted his hand. "Of course you will."

He got a funny feeling in stomach and needed to chase it away with a joke. "And anyway, it seems only fair," he said once she turned back to cooking. 

"What does?"

"You having to deal with how handsome I am."

"Oh yeah?" She laughed. "Why?" 

"I mean here I am, forced to deal with all this." 

"All what?" 

He waited until she turned around before giving her a slow, appreciative once over.

She scoffed and turned back to chopping onions, then slid them into the pan as he munched on pretzels. Finally, she said without turning around, "Well, that is very kind of you."

"It's the truth."

"Although it has been a while since you've spent time with a woman, so--"

When she didn't finish the sentence, he sat back and crossed his arms. "No, please, I'd love to know where you were going with that."

"So perhaps your standards aren't what they once were."

He shrugged, then reached out for a slice of red pepper. She smacked his hand, which sent a not unpleasant jolt through him. "That's fair, I guess, though back in the day I did have pretty high standards. And you more than met them. _That_ was never the problem."

"There was a problem?"

"There was a reason I never hit on you."

She laughed. "You never hit on me?" 

"When we first met, I flirted with you. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Flirting is for fun. Hitting on someone...indicates intent."

"And you never had intent?"

"Correct."

Without looking over, she asked, "Why? 

"Why did I never try to get with you?"

"Yeah."

"Three reasons."

"So you've thought about this?"

"You could say I've had a lot of time to think."

The look she gave him was...maybe pity. Curiosity. It was sensitive, whatever it was.

"Reason number three." He held up 3 fingers."Fucking the help is just tacky."

She scoffed. 

"You disagree?"

"Oh, I agree, but a lot of rich people don't share our opinion."

"A lot of rich people are assholes."

"True." She pointed a spatula at him. "You were a rich asshole, I'm just surprised you felt that way."

"What can I say, I liked to keep things simple." At her dubious expression, he grinned. "Well, at least when it came to sex. Fucking the help, it can get messy."

"You don't like messy?"

"Not that kind of messy."

There was a moment of eye contact from her that he couldn't quite read. It passed. "Reason two?

"Ah yes, reason two. Harlan forbade it."

She set down knife and looked taken aback. "He what?"

"Oh, he was crystal clear. He liked you, and he told me, let's see if I have this right, 'If you scare that lovely girl off with your dumb young prick, my boy, the consequences will not be pleasant.'" 

"When was this?"

"Hmm. Fourth of July party." 

"The first time we met?"

"The very same. You had on that yellow dress. He caught me looking."

She shook her head. "And you listened?"

"Like I said, fucking the help is tacky. But he had no reason to believe me if I said that, so I just said, 'Yes, sir.'" 

The pan was sizzling by then, the scent of beef and peppers and onions filling the air. She washed her hands then turned back to the sink, drying her hands on her red and white gingham kitchen towel, regarding him with curiosity. Once she was done, she stayed with her back to the sink. Behind her, the window to the outside offered a view of the snow-covered yard, ground and sky reflecting the light back and forth in that strange extended sunset you get when the whole world is white. Not as bright as you get in the city, with all the bounced lights keeping a dull glow going all night. No, out here in the woods it got properly dark. Unless the storm ended by the time the moon set, but he didn't see that happening. 

He wondered what Marta looked like in the moonlight. He wondered if he would be here long enough to find out. He realized abruptly that he didn't know how long they'd been making eye contact, and looked away. 

"Ransom," she said, drawing his attention back to her. Then she gestured at the kitchen island. "Set our places." 

He fetched the dishes from the cabinet, aware of her gaze on him, and laid them on the counter beside the stove. Then the placemats, arranged carefully in front of the tall chairs that sat on either side of one of the corners of the kitchen island. Then the napkins, then the glasses from the cabinet on the other side of the sink. When he returned to get the silverware from the drawer, she still hadn't moved, small of her back hitting the counter directly beside the utensil drawer. He studiously ignored how close they were standing. 

Her fingers grazed his bare forearm, just a glancing touch, but he froze, eyes fixed on the neatly stacked forks and spoons. He paused, took a breath and looked over at her. 

She asked, "And reason number one?" 

He looked back down at the drawer, selected the utensils, then nudged the drawer closed with his hip before leaning against the counter, facing her, a little closer than was appropriate. She was forced to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze. "Isn't it obvious?" 

"Enlighten me."

"It was clear from the jump, Marta. You're entirely immune to my charms."

She chuckled, but there was an awkward edge to it and she stepped back, returning to the stove, picking a spatula and nudging the sizzling food around the pan. "Your charms? What charms?"

"See?" He continued setting their places. "Not just immune, but blind. Or pretending to be, for the sake of professionalism. Either way, you didn't seem into it. Not even in an, 'I want it, but I know I shouldn't' way." 

"So you preferred easy prey?" She asked, turning off the stove. 

He pulled out one of the stools and half-sat on it, one foot on the floor, the other on one of the rungs. "Wouldn't use the term prey. Or easy for that matter." 

She opened the rice cooker and scooped big heaps of the fluffy grains onto their plates, then nudged the contents of the frying pan onto each of the mounds of white. "What terms would you have used?"

He took the plates she held out and set them on their placemats, watched as she grabbed a bag of salad from the fridge and dumped it in a large bowl, stuck in tongs, then grabbed a bottle of dressing from the bottom of the door, which made her bend over, offering him an affecting view. "I don't know. I mean, I didn't need a woman who made it easy. I just needed one who..." he searched for the right words. 

She sat and scooped salad onto the plate, then squirted dressing onto her greens. Another sip of beer, then she scooped up a forkful of the beef, onions, and peppers and looked at him expectantly, like she wasn't going to eat until he gave her an answer. 

"You gave me zero indication you were up for it. And look, I never minded a little chase, or playing games, It's just...enough women wanted what I had to offer. That's all."

She took a bite, appeared to contemplate his answer. After more beer, she sat back and gestured at him with the bottle. "Not a surprise."

"Sniffing around where I wasn't wanted...it never really appealed." He started shoveling food into his mouth to head off further questions. For a while, they ate in silence, Ransom's attention on his plate, his peripheral vision tickled by the glances she kept flicking his way. She was sitting around the corner from him, facing the entrance to the kitchen while he had a view out the window to the snowy grey-white that was rapidly deepening to an even dusky lavender. When he'd cleared about two-thirds of his plate, he finally set down his fork and turned to her. Their knees brushed. He didn't pull his away. "What? What is it?"

"Nothing really, you just never struck me as a man who preferred to be pursued."

"That's not how I'd put it."

"How would you put it?"

"I prefer...an active partner."

"You prefer your partner to take the active roll?"

"I like a girl who knows what she wants."

After a moment's contemplation, she said, "You prefer to know what your partner wants."

"Yeah." 

"So you need to know that you are wanted."

"Who doesn't like being wanted?" He asked. "I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't mind having to work for it, if it's a question of should she, or if it's a bad idea. But it's no fun for me if she doesn't want it."

"And you were good at that? Knowing if she wanted it?"

"Let's just say, I prefer when a woman makes that clear."

"And that was more important to you than your grandfather's disapproval or my relative social status?"

"I guess so." 

"And if I had?"

"Had what?"

She took another swig, tipping up her bottle to finish it, then set it down and picked up the second one, the one she had opened for him. Condensation dribbled down the dark brown glass. She picked up the empty tumbler he'd set above her placemat and tipped it, pouring about half the beer into it carefully, but it still foamed to nearly the top. She took a sip, then said, lips lingering near the rim of the glass. "Made it clear."

"Huh." He cleared his throat, but the next thing he said still came out hoarse. "Guess we'll never know."

"Your best guess then," she pressed.

"Would I have let Harlan stop me? Or you being the help?"

'Yeah."

"And this is assuming I find you attractive."

"For the sake of argument," she said with a smirk that carved the hint of a dimple into her cheek. 

He huffed a quiet chuckle. "For the sake of the argument. Sure. Hmm, let's see." He stroked his beard, or tried to, but his hand only met sensitive bare skin. 

His surprise must have registered on his face because she asked, "Does it feel strange?"

"Kinda." he felt his cheek and chin. "Feels naked."

She reached out and ran the backs of her fingers along his jaw, catching his breath in his chest. "Very smooth. You did a good job."

"Like riding a bike."

She nudged the bottle toward him. "Go on, a few sips won't hurt. The test only detects the last five days at most."

"Are you a bad influence?"

"Answer my question." 

He picked up the cool, wet bottle and brought the lip to his mouth, taking a small sip and enjoying the sharp, bitter fizz on his tongue. "Which question is that?"

"Would you have been stopped by Harlan's disapproval, if I had made it clear that I wanted you?"

"Well," he drawled, after his mind flipped through a dozen possibilities for how she might have done that, each more tantalizing than the last. "I guess that all depends on how clear you made it."

"Fair enough." She nodded, then served herself more salad. After a glance at the untouched, undressed pile of lettuce on his plate, she served him more as well, then drizzled both with dressing and dug into hers. The whole time, if he was not mistaken, a slight blush rose in her cheeks.

He methodically demolished the entire pile of romaine and shredded carrots, then said casually, "But probably not."

Her eyes flicked to his. 

"So what about you, Ms. Cabrera?"

"What about me?"

"What's your deal?"

She laughed. "What's my _deal_?"

"If pretty rich boys don't do it for you, who does?" 

She looked at him like he'd grown another head.

"What kind of guys do you like?"

"Why, are you in the mood to play matchmaker?"

"I do happen to know an awful lot of eligible bachelors."

"Eligible for parole bachelors."

"I did set that one up for you."

"There will be no setting up of any kind." She wiped her mouth, then pushed her plate away and dropped the napkin onto it. "I get enough of that from my mother, thank you very much. But speaking of that, tell me more about your parole officer."

"I don't think he's your type."

She glared.

"Didn't see a ring though."

"You are hilarious."

"I don't know. He seemed fine. I don't plan on getting on his bad side."

"Good. Now about Meg." 

"Is she your type?" He stroked his chin and gave her an assessing look. "The whole being immune to my charms thing makes more sense now."

Marta scoffed. "She has a fiancé." 

"That doesn't exactly answer my--wait. What?" He dropped the teasing smile and sat up straight. "Little Meg?"

"Little Meg turns thirty next year."

"Jesus."

"Indeed." She clinked the base of her glass on the counter a few times, then looked up at him hesitantly. "So, about Meg. I know you got a little sensitive earlier, when I mentioned her coming to visit. It's up to you."

"Sensitive?"

"Pissy."

"I wasn't sensitive about Meg."

"I didn't think you were."

"Yeah, I'd love to see her."

"How's this weekend?"

He mimed opening a book, licking a finger, and turning pages. "Let me check my calendar and get back to you." 

"Is that a yes, if she's available?"

"It's a yes." He took a sip of the beer and then used his fingers to pick the last few peppers off his plate and eat them. "Fiancé. Huh. What's he like?" 

"She's an architect. Tightly wound. Smitten. Lives in San Diego. Meg's moving there in the Spring."

"Cute?"

"Striking. Reminds me a little of your mother, actually."

He heaved a sigh, full of contradictory feelings, none of which he had the energy to explore at that moment.

She looked like she wanted to say something but thought better of it. "Well then. What do you say we get back to the scripts?"

He took another sip and waited a moment before responding, torn between the urge to obey her suggestion immediately and resist a little, just to see what her response might be. Would she make her request more forcefully? What would she do if he said no? 

But she just looked at him expectantly, clearly eager to get back to the adaptations, and the truth was he was eager as well, so he shrugged and said, "Sure, why not?" 

She rewarded him with a broad grin. 

*

She sat in the same chair as the night before, the big leather wingback one in which Harlan enthroned himself every Christmas Eve. The fire had died down, and as he knelt to inspect the embers, Marta told him to take Gordito out and fetch more firewood. Outside, the swirling wind and heavy snow made it hard to see more than a few feet in front of his face. The dog looked up at him, as if he was mortally offended by the blizzard, refusing to take even one step into the knee-deep drifts. Fair enough, since knee-deep for Ransom was over the little guy's head. 

As the dog watched, Ransom shoveled a fresh path down the steps, re-cleared the little piss patch on the ground, and hefted the solid fuzzball, chauffeuring him down and plopping him on the frozen dirt. And waited. And waited some more. 

Ransom shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched against the wind as he watched the dog sniff at various identical-looking patches of dead grass, cursing his decision to skip his jacket. Finally, the corgi deigned to deposit a neat yellow streak and scrambled back up the stairs to get back in the warm house. Ransom pulled the door shut to keep the cold out here where it belonged, then double-timed it to the shed and gathered a fresh armful of split logs from under the tarp that covered the cured wood. 

Inside, he dumped the wood on the floor by the coat rack, then stripped off his snow-caked sweater, leaving him in his henley. The boots came off, and he knocked the worst of the frozen clumps off the bottom of his jeans, then headed back into the den, where Marta was waiting with two mugs on the table beside her chair. The mugs had marshmallows floating on what looked, and smelled, like hot chocolate. 

As Ransom rekindled the fire, Marta spoke to him about the scripts she'd finished last night. She told him what she liked and didn't like about the stories, asked questions about both that led him to suggest the adaptations of three other titles. By the time the fire was blazing and Ransom had most of the feeling back in his toes, she was a dozen pages into the first of his recommendations, pen in hand, murmuring to herself as she scribbled notes in the margins.

He eyed the stacks of scripts on the coffee table that sat beside the richly upholstered sofa. It was the most logical place to sit, but the dog was sprawled out on the cushions, already snoring. And there was that toasty patch of rug in front of the fire, a few feet from Marta's chair. He picked up his hot chocolate as he eyed it, the sofa, and Marta in turn. 

"Is it bad out there?" she asked, flipping a page.

"Pretty nasty." He grabbed a few scripts from the coffee table, then sat in front of the fire, peeling off his socks and warming his feet. "A lot to shovel tomorrow."

"Good thing I've got you," she said, under her breath. The fire popped, startling Gordito into lifting his head and whuffing softly. "Come here, tell me what you think of this scene." 

He crawled the few feet over to her chair and knelt beside it, looking at the script spread open in her lap. His shoulder pressed against her arm as he read, murmured, "Next page," and read some more. The dialogue was sharp and witty, the characterization different from the detective of his Grandfather's novel, but the series in question had been popular in the late eighties, with more than a few elements that read as problematic today. "Wait." he rose up on his knees and reached over, flipping back several pages and scanning the text. "Is Benton a woman in this?"

"Harriet Benton," she said with a nod.

"Interesting," he said, sitting back on his heels. When she held out the script he took it and sat next to her chair, leaning back against the side of it and returning to page one of the adaptation of _This Little Piggy_. Ransom took another sip of cocoa and started to read. Gordito sat up and yawned, licked himself for a minute, then hopped off the couch and trotted over to the pair. He curled up beside Ransom, rested his chin on Ransom's thigh, and enjoyed absentminded pets as Ransom paged his way through the script.

Outside, the wind howled. 

*

Ransom stirred awake, disoriented but not particularly concerned by his unfamiliar surroundings. He was seated, slumped against an uneven surface, head resting on something warm and yielding. In his drowsy haze, he was aware that his cock was more than half hard, edging toward the point where it was uncomfortable, trapped in an awkward position by his jeans. That discomfort was distracting enough that it took him a second to register the warm weight that rested on top of his head. A deep breath brought the scent of the nearby, crackling fireplace, laundry detergent, something sugar-sweet, and something distinctly female. He inhaled again, trying to catch more of that last intoxicating scent.

The weight moved and his eyes fluttered open. Everything slotted into place and he realized he'd fallen asleep in the den, sitting beside Marta's chair. Somehow, he'd ended up with his head on her lap and she was idly stroking his head. 

He started to look up, trying to piece together an apology in his still-drowsy brain, but the barely-there skimming of her fingertips over his scalp halted, and she pressed his head down before his cheek even lost contact with his thigh. "No, stay, you're fine," she murmured. "I've been reading and I have questions."

"Questions?" he murmured, feeling dazed and drowsy and safe. He knew he would have to shift his position soon, it wasn't just his cock that was stiff, his neck ached and one of his legs was half-asleep, but her steady, gentle pressure on his head, holding him down, it felt so monumental he couldn't have fought it even if he tried. 

He didn't want to try. 

What he wanted, he realized as the cobwebs of sleep sloughed off his mind and reality encroached, was to turn his face toward that intimate scent and nuzzle closer, snuffling like a dog, burying his face in the dark, fragrant crook between her thighs. But her touch was firm, and as long as she held him there, he wouldn't move a muscle. He could be good, whispered something from deep in the back of his head. He would be good for her. 

She was speaking, so he tuned into her words, but all he caught was the tail end, her saying, "...don't you think?"

"Hmm?"

Her hand shifted from holding him down to skimming his scalp again, fingers drifting along the side of his head, barely brushing the edge of his ear each time. His hair was too short for her to actually run her fingers through it, but the bristles shifted this way and that in response to her feather-light touch. Each pass spilled a shiver down the back of his neck, along his spine, until heat cracked open like an egg, low in his stomach. He shifted his hips almost imperceptibly, hoping to alleviate his situation but the awkward compression only grew worse. 

She repeated her question, something about the continuity between two of Harlan's most popular series and whether one of the shared characters might be enough to form the basis of a cinematic universe. Hoarse and still a little fuzzy with sleep, he managed to share a thought he'd had earlier while reading the same script, something about combining two of the side characters with a love interest Harlan had given little more than a support role. Between the soothing rhythmic movements of her hand, the soft, inviting warmth of her lap, and the insistent throb in his own lap, it was hard to concentrate, but he did his best. 

Thinking he could surreptitiously solve the last problem (since the first two were less problems than treasured morsels of affectionate human contact, the likes of which he hadn't had in forever), he slowly reached between his legs and shifted his position as subtly as he could, giving himself some room down there. The change in pressure and angle, as well as the hint of friction from the heel of his hand felt so good he had to grit his teeth and swallow hard to keep a groan in. He wasn't entirely successful, but she didn't seem to notice, since she kept lazily stroking him, like he was the dog, and continued talking in a low, soothing voice about the potential to merge ideas from two adaptations of the same series.

Glacially slow, he brought his hand back to between his legs and adjusted again, allowing himself a bit more room to grow, and giving in to the urge to let his hand linger. Pressing against the stiff ridge that tented the denim felt so spectacularly good that he allowed himself a gentle squeeze, gripping himself as well as he could in this position, then moving his hand back to sit innocently on his thigh. The pleasure ricocheted in his gut, swirling with the warm clench of contentment that sat in his chest. One more, he thought, just one more squeeze and then he'd stop before she noticed he was rubbing himself. 

Distracted as he was by his own touch, he didn't notice that her petting had stopped, or that her words had stopped. His focus had narrowed to the creep of his hand, the drag of contact up his leg, which he shifted ever so slightly to give himself better access. He just felt so dazed and warm and content and _safe_ , dizzy with her closeness and the pleasant haze of knowing his opinion had value to her. _He_ had value to her. So he let that last squeeze linger, perhaps, a touch too long. 

Or perhaps she'd known what he was doing down there all along. Either way, as his trapped cock throbbed against the palm of his hand, he was brought up short by a single word. Her firm, quiet, "No."

He froze, heart thudding into double time. "What?" He croaked. 

She sighed, and didn't sound put out so much as amused when she said, "Stop touching your dick, Ransom."

A flood of prickling hot humiliation rushed to his face, and he slid his hand away, giving himself one last drag of friction before setting the offending hand on his knee. "I, uh, just needed to..." he stammered. "I wasn't--"

"I don't care about your reasons," she said, tone shifting to one of boredom. 

He tried to lift his head again, to look up at her and apologize, but again, she held him down with a firm hand. His breath came quicker as he stayed still for her, muscles aching from the strain of holding the position, nostrils flaring. Electric awareness flooded every inch of his skin. 

"I have a few more questions, and after you answer, you may go." 

"But I just wanted--"

"I'm not interested in what you want. Right now, I'm interested in these questions." She clicked a pen, very close to his ear. "Do you understand?"

He closed his eyes and focused on obeying her, staying as still as possible. Even as his pulse pounded and everything from his stomach to his thighs tightened into an aching ball of need, a strange, warm calm descended over him.

"Do you understand?" She repeated. 

He nodded, his sensitive bare cheek aware of the texture of her leggings. He turned his head a fraction more, pressing his nose and mouth to the top of her thigh and inhaled deeply. 

"Is that a yes?" Her hand slid down, gentle drag of short nails along his scalp drawing a groan from deep in his chest. Then she gripped the back of his neck and squeezed, just like she did in the car earlier, and like earlier his awareness narrowed and the rest of the world fell away. "Hmm, Ransom?"

"Yes," he rasped, mouth moving against her leg. 

"Good boy." 

Fuck. He couldn't help it, his hips twitched, and he could swear he felt pre-come leak out. 

She cleared her throat. Then, true to her word, she asked him a series of questions. It was a monumental struggle to focus on her words, but he forced himself to breathe and think and give her the answers she sought, about plots and character development and themes common to many of Harlan's works. With every response he gave, he heard the scratch of her pen, felt her thumb skim the side of his neck, counted his breaths until she spoke again, hoping that each question was the last, but at the same time hoping she wouldn't stop, since dangling on the edge like this felt so ecstatically good he never wanted the moment to end. 

Finally, her pen clicked, and she shifted ever so slightly. He heard the stack of pages get set on a nearby table, and his fingers curled against his knee, nails digging into the denim as he forced himself to stay where he was, where she'd put him, and not give in to the overwhelming desire to fill his hands with her soft flesh and bury his face against her stomach, begging for more of her touch. 

In the quiet, as she petted his head in long, smooth strokes, time lost all meaning. There was only the warmth of her thigh beneath his cheek, the touch of her hand, the screaming chorus of aching muscles as they protested holding one position for so long, and the exquisite, heavy throb of his untouched cock. "You've been very helpful," she murmured. 

"Hmm." The noise came out ragged. His mouth was dry, lips smacking audibly as he parted them, formed the words, "You're welcome." He felt high. He felt needy. He felt like begging but he didn't know for what. "Is that...is there anything else you...can I..." 

Her nails dragged down his scalp, hard enough to send a shudder through him that she had to feel. Then her hand came to rest on the side of his neck, where it met his shoulder, and she dug into the rigid muscle there, kneading a few deep circles into his flesh, drawing a shameless groan from deep in his chest. She kept rubbing and he pressed his face to the top of her thigh, bowing his head to offer up more of the nape of his neck, mouth opening against her leggings in another low groan as she pressed deeper with strong, warm fingers. 

"No," she said. "You're good." Her massage slowed, then stopped, then she cupped his cheek, brushing her fingertips over his smooth skin. He turned into the touch, finding her palm with his mouth, then the heel of her hand, her thumb. When she traced his lips he opened for her, capturing the tip between his teeth then sucking for a brief, blissful moment before she drew her hand away. 

She nudged at his head and he lifted it, looked up at her through heavy lidded eyes. As she held his gaze he held his breath and reached, tentatively, for one of her knees. When he closed his hand around it, she let out an unsteady breath. "Thank you, Ransom. That will be all." She took him by the wrist and removed the offending hand from her knee.

He sat back, joints screaming, and planted a hand on the rug as he swayed. He felt dizzy, confused, and vulnerable. With some effort, he rose to his knees then, wobbling, to his feet. He had to plant a hand on the back of her chair to steady himself.

She looked up with a hint of concern. "You okay?"

"Um," he shook his head to clear it, then rubbed at his face with his free hand. "Uh, yeah." 

"Good." She turned her attention back to the script that rested on the far arm of her chair and flipped to the next page. 

From this angle, standing above her, he could see down the front of her modest v-neck t-shirt and make out a hint of cleavage and the scalloped edge of a baby blue bra. He adjusted himself, then gave the insistently throbbing flesh a satisfying squeeze. 

"I told you to stop doing that," she said without looking up. 

"Sorry," he said with zero sincerity. 

She shot him an admonishing look then flipped to the next page. 

"Is there, uh," he stepped in front of the chair, directly in her line of sight. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Slowly, she lifted her gaze from the script and there, directly in front of her, was the unmistakable evidence of what _whatever the fuck that just was_ had done to him. She tilted her head slightly and seemed to contemplate it, as one might do to a painting in a gallery, and as she stared, expressionless, he felt more and more stupid just standing there. He successfully fought the urge to cover himself or turn away though, and was rewarded with her gaze traveling up his torso, her chin lifting, until her eyes finally met his. She cocked an eyebrow, pursed her lips, and said lightly, "No thank you."

He gritted his teeth. "You _sure_?" 

She drew the script down into her lap and started reading again, clicking her pen and saying casually, "Tea would be nice."

"Tea."

"Herbal, please." She made a tick next to one of the paragraphs and didn't bother looking up. 

He took a deep, frustrated breath, blew it out, and said, "Tea. Sure." 

With supreme concentration, he filled the electric kettle and clicked it on, got down a mug and a bag of chamomile, then gripped the counter with both hands and waited as the water slowly rumbled to life. Outside, the snow had stopped, and although clouds still dotted the sky, the nearly full moon cast blue-white light on the softly curved blanket of snow. He shifted his weight forward and allowed his erection to rub against the edge of the counter. The direct pressure felt so good, he had to swallow a moan. 

As he rocked forward gently, he imagined several different ways the last few minutes might have gone, tiptoeing up to the risk of making an embarrassing mess all over the inside of his pants. He knew if he took himself in hand, he'd need no more than a handful of strokes to trigger a release. But Marta said not to touch his dick, and it felt _good_ to do as she said. It felt good to control himself for her. It felt good that she trusted him to obey.

Eventually, the kettle clicked off and he filled the mug with the steaming water, carried it carefully back out to the den and set it on the table beside her. Gordito had taken his place on the floor by her chair, his chin resting on her feet. He crouched to scratch the good boy's head, steadying himself with his other hand on the arm of her chair. "Night buddy," he murmured, then paused there, taking the opportunity to examine her face. "Is there anything else you need from me?"

She shook her head.

"Anything you want?"

She said, with an enigmatic hint of a smile, "Go to bed now, Ransom. I'll see you in the morning."

Upstairs, he stripped, and crawled under his covers. In the darkness, he reached for his nearly bursting cock and just held the rigid flesh for a few breaths, savoring the sensation of skin on skin. One slow stroke, root to tip, another, then a third with a rough drag of his thumb across the leaking head and he spilled helplessly, hot and slick, over his knuckles, head tossed back, strangled groan filling the quiet room.

He lay there, sticky puddle cooling on his stomach, staring at the ceiling and waiting for his breathing to return to normal. "What the fuck," he whispered into the darkness, utterly unsure of what to do with all the contradictory emotions rattling around inside him. "What the actual fuck?"


	4. Chapter 4

Next morning in the shower, as he scrubbed the itchy dried jizz off his belly, Ransom took a stab at making sense of the previous evening. The possibility that this setup they had, and by extension last night, was one big power trip for Marta remained near the top of his list. Clearly, she took some pleasure in exercising control of him. As hard as she could be to read, he was certain of that much. And for all that she talked about feeling safe being alone with him, he imagined that she found it reassuring when she set these boundaries with him, watched him respond and obey, stopped him in his tracks with a touch on the wrist (or the neck, and at the memory of that touch from last night his flagging morning wood came surging back).

A squirt of coconut-scented conditioner and he angled himself away from the spray, took up a steady pace, with purpose, and worked himself quickly in the direction of the finish line. Taking one off the top to start the day seemed smart, if he intended to keep himself in check around her. And he did. He didn't have any fears about his self-control when it came to wanting her.

He'd told the truth last night during their meandering dinner conversation. Back in the day, women who didn't clearly indicate their interest, their invitation even, held no appeal for him. Being with someone unwilling, or even reluctant, the idea still turned him off. Back then, as far as he could tell, Marta demonstrated no willingness, not even any interest in Ransom in that way, something he'd found maddening.

He turned his attention to his balls, slowing his pace and reminding himself he had the time and privacy to enjoy this, and considered the fact that in the big, soft eyes of Marta of today, there was almost certainly a spark of interest, which in its own way was just as maddening. To say his ability to read women had atrophied in the last several years was an understatement, to be sure. But that spark was there, he'd bet almost anything on it. Question was, of course, was he willing to bet his living situation?

It seemed obvious to Ransom that making any sort of affirmative move on her would be self-destructive at best. Even with her apparent interest, even with the actions of last night that had sure as hell felt like some sort of invitation, being the one to cross that line felt way too risky. He was rusty, not just with reading women but being with them. Being with anyone like that. He hadn't lacked for opportunities inside, transactional ones as well as ones that seemed to arise from a genuine interest, a genuine hunger for touch. But none had appealed, or at least none had seemed worth it after he weighed the pros and cons. Before, Ransom had never been a cuddler, certainly never been a hugger, from a family of people not prone to physical affection. These days, the thought of a simple hug made him horny and thirsty for contact, and almost unbearably vulnerable. Which was never an emotion that turned his crank before, but suddenly...the thought of being weak for her in particular made him dizzy with desire.

As he worked his shaft, he slid a free hand up his chest, to his neck, traced a thumb over his lips like she had the night before then bit the tip and sped his strokes. Touching him like she had last night, maybe she enjoyed playing with fire. Fuck, she had to know the effect touching him like that would have. He'd certainly made it clear, waving his boner in her face like some shameless teenager.

Didn't want him to touch it, though. Did she enjoy telling him no? Did she get off on making him ache? Or was she trying to make it clear that a little innocent affection was fine, but more than that was out of the question? Why would she have touched his face like that, though? Was she messing with his head on purpose? Why did she touch his mouth and fuck he wanted to put his mouth on her. Any part of her she would allow.

He stroked faster, feeling the end draw near, and told himself that going at her pace was the only choice, had always been the only choice. He'd been here only days, not nearly long enough to feel secure in whatever the hell this was. Did she even know what she wanted? That was the real question, he guessed. The one thing he knew that she wanted was for Ransom to do as he was told. And he could do that. Not try and figure her out or read her mind or anticipate her desires.

Not complicate this good thing he had going with his own desires. No, all he had to do was keep his dick in his pants and steer clear of compromising positions, and just do what Marta told him to do, that was it. And if she wanted something more from him? She could make that clear. Crystal clear. With her fucking words, those plump lips and that soft accent wrapped around something like, "Kiss me, Ransom." Or, "Lick it." So close, he worked himself mercilessly. "Fill me up, fuck me, make me scream, give it to me, give me everything, you're mine," the Marta in his head purred. "You are mine."

*

Refreshed from his shower activities and in a better headspace after his decision to say fuck it and let the quasi-sexual chips fall where they may, at her pace, he trotted down the stairs, eager to get an early start on the shoveling. Marta was busy in the kitchen when he came down, phone pressed to her ear, a couple of tiny figures with bookcases in the background spoke to her from a laptop screen. "One moment," she said, then hit a button and turned to him. 

He picked a pan half full with some sort of hash with potatoes, peppers, onions and sausage and scraped the remainder into a bowl, sat back against the counter and dug into it without sitting down. 

"Good morning," she said with a small smile. "You're in a good mood."

He wondered if the events of last night were on her mind, or if she'd dismissed them as soon as they happened. He wondered if they even counted as 'events' to her, or just chalked them up to him being an excitable pervert. He studied her face to see if he could puzzle anything out.

"What?" She wiped her cheek. "Something on my face?"

He shook his head and washed down the food with some juice, then said, "You've got an early meeting."

"Not early in London," she said, glancing at the screen, then back at him as he continued to shovel his breakfast into his mouth. "Are you in some sort of hurry?" 

He poured himself some coffee, then a healthy dash of milk to cool it and downed about half the cup before answering, enjoying her quizzical, amused expression. "Just ready to get a start to this beautiful day," he said with a grin. "It's gorgeous outside."

"It's twenty degrees," she pointed out. "You'd better wrap up. Lots of layers, since you don't have proper winter clothing. We'll go shopping once the road is clear." 

"You spoil me," he said with a wink. 

She rolled her eyes, then eyed the laptop screen, typed for a moment, then looked back up. "I am responsible for your wellbeing. I don't want you getting sick." 

"I can handle getting sick." 

"Yes, you're a very tough guy, Ransom," she said dripping with sarcasm. "But all those muscles don't mean a virus can't take you down. You'd know that better than most."

He shot her a curious glance. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"According to your medical records, you got quite sick during the pandemic." 

He paused and set the pastry he was demolishing back down on the plate, then wiped the crumbs off his face and gave her a curious look. "My medical records?"

A guilty look flicked across her face. 

"Aren't they supposed to be private?"

"I--well."

He enjoyed seeing her flustered, but in truth feeling exposed to her like that felt strangely...comforting. "Once a nurse, always a nurse?"

"I'm sorry. You're right. I should have asked your permission. I had planned to take you for a check up at my clinic."

"You work at a clinic?"

"Well, no."

"Volunteer."

"I own the clinic. I own a few, actually. And I had them call over for your records. I wanted to know if you had any medical conditions I should know about, from your time in prison."

Huh. His first impulse was to feel exposed, maybe a tiny bit violated. Privacy wasn't a possibility for him for so long that he should, in theory, value it more highly. And yeah, technically, what she'd done was a little dodgy. But the truth was, there was nothing in there he was ashamed of, nothing he wanted to hide from her. His experiences with medical personnel on the inside had been uncomfortable at best, humiliating at worst. And all of it with bored, overworked staff who made it clear they didn't give two shits about him. 

If Marta wanted to take a peek at his history. And if, a devious part of his mind offered, she wanted to play doctor with him. Well, that might be uncomfortable and humiliating in a fun way. The prospect intrigued him. He realized he'd been quiet for a while, so he quickly reassured her, "No, it's really fine. Don't worry about it."

"It was an invasion of your privacy."

It was. And maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to make her pay for it, just a little. Nothing bad. Nothing that approached making a move on her. Nothing that she couldn't dismiss as teasing if she wanted. But something that pushed back just a little and maybe made her squirm. He thought about it for a second, then he downed his coffee, and started to head out of the kitchen. Pausing as he crossed behind her, he casually put a hand on her shoulder and leaned down to whisper in her ear, "You can invade my privacy any time you like, Marta."

Before she had a chance to respond, he strolled in the direction of the foyer. Behind him, he heard voices from the unmuted computer, including a scandalized, British sounding, "Is that him?" 

Ransom paused just outside the doorway. "Is that who?" Marta replied.

"Your...your convict. Is it safe to have him there?"

"I have nothing to fear from him. And that's a little judgmental, don't you think?"

"What would you call him then," said the same voice, overlapping with a woman asking, "Is it true he lives with you?" along with a handful of surprised and disbelieving noises. 

"Yes, he lives with me. I would call him my guest. And my assistant groundskeeper. He's made himself useful in many ways."

Ransom smiled. Full of a warm feeling in his chest, Ransom slipped into the foyer and started lacing up his boots. He'd made himself useful, he thought with an unreasonable amount of pride. Not 'lived up to her expectations', or been a disappointment when it came to achieving his potential, but 'useful'. He didn't know why something so simple should make him feel so good, but it did. He was still riding that high as he donned his jacket and reached for the doorknob.

"What do you think you're doing?" 

He froze mid-twist and looked back at her. "Going outside? Where the snow is? So...I can shovel it?"

She tsked at him and crossed her arms. "Come here." 

"I...okay." He crossed the foyer and came to a stop in front of her. With him in his thick boots and her in her socks, their height difference was even more pronounced, but that didn't stop him from feeling cowed by her disapproving expression. Had the concerns of one of the videoconference people gotten through to her? His heart sank. "What did I do?"

"It's more what you didn't do, Ransom." She looked at him expectantly. 

He didn't get it. "Was there...um." He searched his brain for what she might mean. "Did I forget to do something? Should I make a fire first, or--"

"Do you remember what I told you to do before you went outside?" She waited for a response and when none was forthcoming, added, "Tough guy?"

He shrugged. 

With a sigh, she grabbed his jacket zipper and yanked it down, shoving it open, then lifted up the front of his sweater. 

His stomach tightened, triggering a cascade of not unpleasant tension through his midsection. When she grabbed his t-shirt and tugged at it, untucking it from his pants, knuckles offering a glancing friction that set off a second wave of shivers. "What is this?" She asked impatiently. 

"Is this a trick question?"

"No."

"A...shirt?"

"Ugh," she said, then some Spanish under her breath that sounded exasperated. She dropped the t-shirt, then shoved the jacket off his shoulders, yanking it down until it dropped on the floor behind Ransom. "Give me your sweater."

His eyes went wide, completely unsure where this was going, but more than on board with it for the moment. He tugged his sweater off and held it out to her with what he was sure was a bewildered expression. She fetched the jacket from the floor and hung it and the sweater over the bannister. 

"That is a t-shirt. I told you to layer up."

"It's a," he looked down at the thin cotton with a frown. "It's a layer." 

"You have long underwear. Why aren't you wearing it?"

"I wanted to get started. I figured if it was that bad out, I could put more on. Look, it's fine. I like the cold, I don't need--"

"You need what I say you need. Are you even wearing anything underneath those jeans?"

He figured boxers counted as something. "Yeah. Of course."

She gave him a dubious look, then abruptly grabbed him by the waistband. He couldn't hide his gasp but she ignored it, undoing his button, then his zipper, momentarily grazing his awakening erection, and with a shove, she pushed his pants down to his ankles. "See? Just like I thought." 

He blinked at her. 

"Go sit down." She pointed impatiently at the stairs and he complied, waddling the few steps awkwardly, then easing down to sit on the third step. "Boots off."

He complied, anticipation humming through his veins.

Once he was done, she demanded his jeans, which she hung over the banister along with his other clothes. She took a step back and crossed her arms, shaking her head. "I need you to make better choices, Ransom, and barring that, I need you to do as I say." 

"I'm trying."

"Try a little harder." 

He didn't like her disappointment, or the sour feeling it gave him in his stomach, but somehow neither one did anything to dampen his body's reaction to being manhandled by her and exposed like this. Any second, she'd probably notice, his boxers were doing fuck all to hide his bulge, and there would be fresh reason for her to be annoyed and/or disappointed. So, he thought with a flare of perverse naughtiness, why not lean into it. He leaned back casually on his elbows and let his knees splay out, drawing the cotton of his boxers snug over the ridge of his erection. "Harder, huh?" he asked with a lazy smile. 

She glanced down to his crotch, eyes flaring wide in surprise. She scoffed and looked away, fixing her gaze on the pile of his clothes on the bannister. "You know very well that isn't what I meant."

"You don't have to worry, Marta," he drawled, deeply amused and satisfied by her flustered reaction. "I'm not gonna touch it, if that's what you're thinking." 

She pursed her lips and seemed to struggle to regain her composure. Calmly, she continued. "Why do you think that would worry me?"

"Figure of speech."

"Why do you believe I would care?" 

He weighed whether or not to push his luck, but since she hadn't stormed off or gotten truly upset, or told him to cover up for that matter, and she was certainly comfortable ordering him around when it came to his state of dress, he said, "Because you cared last night."

"I..." That brought her up short and a pretty blush colored her cheeks. "Last night was...it was..."

Please don't say a mistake, he thought. Before she could find that word or worse, he said, "Last night was nice."

She laughed. "Nice?"

"What would you call it?"

She didn't answer. 

"Last night," he said, lifting his chin, "You told me not to touch myself. I'm just following orders."

"Do you think it's appropriate to do that in front of me?"

"Do you think I can control whether I get hard when a beautiful woman touches me?"

"Do you think it's appropriate to make _that_ ," she glanced at it, "my problem?"

"Doesn't have to be your problem. Or your responsibility." 

She stared at him for a long time, long enough he started to lose his nerve and sit up. 

"You know what? You're right, I'm sorry. Forget..." Fuck. Did he just screw all this up with his 'dumb young prick' as Harlan put it. Not that he was all that young anymore. "This was a bad idea. I shouldn't have...just forget the last two minutes happened."

"No," she said as he started to get up. He sat down again. "I want you to answer a question for me, and I need you to be truthful. Can you do that for me?"

He nodded. 

"Promise?" 

"Yeah." 

"Do you want me to stop touching you, Ransom?"

"Of course I don't," he rasped. "Fuck no. Please don't."

After an unsteady breath, she held out one hand. "Give me your t-shirt." 

His body sung once more with electricity. He felt magnetized to her. In a scramble, he tugged it overhead with fingers that were clumsy with nerves, and handed it over, then enjoyed the heat of her gaze. Her appreciation. And that unmistakable flare of desire. He may have been rusty, but what he saw in her eyes was unquestionable. 

She took a step closer. "Your shorts."

He inhaled sharply and obeyed, slipping them off, then handing them over too, now naked except for his socks. She took a step closer, then put one foot on the bottom step between his legs. He spread his legs a little wider and waited, breathing in shallow pants. 

Finally, when he thought he was going to explode from the tension, she said simply, "Four."

"Four?" He was confused. 

"You may have four strokes."

He exhaled hard, not quite believing what he was hearing. 

"Go on," she said impatiently, "I have to get back to my call."

He laughed and there was a tinge of hysteria to it. "Yeah. Okay, sure. Your call." He took himself in hand and met her steady gaze, heart threatening to pound out of his chest. He couldn't remember ever being so turned on in his entire life. "So I should just..."

"Count them. Out loud."

"Yes ma'am," he rasped. "One," he said, holding her cool, slightly amused gaze. "Two." He took this next one slower, easing down his shaft and skimming his fingers over his balls, which were already drawn tight and aching with the need to spill. "Three." He took this one even slower, letting his gaze drift down the length of her body, lingering on her breasts, her hips, her hands, and back up to her mouth. She was biting her lip now. 

He was close, another half a dozen and he could almost certainly finish, but he didn't have six more. He had one. So he made it count, bringing his hand to his mouth and spitting on it twice, enjoying the shocked little flare of her eyes, then he gave the head of his cock a slick twist, dragged down with firm pressure, lingered on his way back up and off, then sat back on his elbows once more and stared up at her with challenge. "Four," he said, then waited. 

She exhaled like she'd been holding her breath. Still, there was a quaver in her voice when she said, "Good. Now go put on your long underwear and the rest of your clothes, and come see me in the kitchen before you go outside."

"Yes, ma'am."

*

Nearly two weeks later, and whatever the hell it was that was happening between them was still happening. 

In days directly after the incident on the stairs, they fell into a pattern where Marta would assign him tasks for the day, and he'd complete them, patiently waiting for the moment she would give him instructions of a different nature. The wait was half the fun, he told himself.

There was the endless series of chores around the property that Ransom threw himself into and performed to the point of exhaustion. There were the scripts and, after a short amount of time, more tasks relating to _Blood Like Wine_ that she allowed him to help with. 

On the second evening after that thing on the stairs, when they were reading together in the den, in front of the fire he had built, he tried wearing his sweatpants with no constricting underwear and sitting on the sofa in such a way that the half-chub he got from watching her lick her fingers to turn the pages was blatant. 

Nothing. No admonishing look. Not even an amused eyeroll. When she told him it was time to go to bed, he climbed the stairs confused and a little disappointed, but he couldn't deny that as he lay in bed, hands at his sides, staring at the ceiling, being made to wait like this felt strangely good. Controlling himself like this felt...satisfying. 

By the third day after the incident on the stairs, with no repeat of the manhandling or the stripping or that number, he was getting a little impatient. He did his best not to let it show, of course, and doing as she said brought its own sort of satisfaction. Mentally, he was in a good place. 

Physically, though...well, in the absence of instructions, he'd opted to try not touching himself until the next time he was told to do so. At first, it was just curiosity, and a desire to be ready if and when the mood struck her once more. Then, it became a game he was playing with himself, to see who would break first. It took effort, denying himself the easy reliable comfort of a quick wank had never been his style. By day three, his body hummed with the need for release in a way that was pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. Doing this on purpose was new and scary, and he wanted to see just how far he could go. 

He woke each morning achingly hard, forced himself through a cold shower until it went down. On day four, he woke up on his stomach, humping the mattress as the strands of a vague dream about swimming and Marta on a boat and being fed great bloody buckets of chum dissolved from his consciousness. He was on the precipice of coming by the time he was fully conscious, and forced himself to his back, shoving the covers away, afraid that even that hint of friction might set him off. 

By day five he was truly on edge, wondering if whatever that was on the stairs was a one time thing, something she tried but thought better of. The thought of just asking, "Hey, you gonna tell me to jerk off again or what," did occur to him, as did the fact that she hadn't actually told him to keep his hands off his dick. Maybe the idea that she cared one way or another was all in his head. He tried gently flirtatious replies, meaningful looks. None of them seemed to register. 

He tried to contain his frustration, but by lunchtime he felt ready to crawl out of his skin, and he felt a little stupid that he'd been playing a game that she seemed to have no interest in joining. His leg bounced as he sat on the stool in the kitchen, and he replied to her friendly questions with short, clipped responses. Finally, she set down her sandwich and said, "Ransom, what's wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"You seem..." she tilted her head. "Distracted."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I don't think that's true."

"Don't worry about it. It's not your problem." He laughed mirthlessly. "Not everything's your problem." 

"If something's upsetting you..."

"I'm not--" he snapped, then took a breath and said calmly, "I am not _upset_."

She slipped off her chair and came around to stand behind him. The moment her hand came to rest on the back of his neck, the bouncing stopped. 

"I'm fine. Not everything is your responsibility. It's not my place to make it--" he bit his lip. "Never mind."

She rubbed his neck gently. "No, go on."

"I'm being stupid."

"You're allowed to be stupid," she said, amusement clear in her voice. 

He turned enough that her hand slid from his neck to between his shoulder blades, but he couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye. "The last thing I want to do is make you feel uncomfortable."

"And this problem would make me uncomfortable? You're sure of that?"

He snorted and did look her in the eye then. "I'm not sure of anything."

"That's why we use our words," she said with a smirk.

"You've been pretty clear, I don't think words are necessary."

"Clear about what?"

"What is and isn't your responsibility. I'm good, this is on me. It's all in my head. It's not real."

"Just because it's in your head," she said, rubbing his back, "That doesn't mean it isn't real."

The gentle affectionate contact drew a twitch of interest from his frustrated dick and he ground his teeth. "You keep touching me." 

The hand disappeared from his back and she leaned against the counter, facing him. "You said you didn't want me to stop touching you."

"Yeah, and you said--you know what? You're right, you didn't."

"I didn't what?"

"I'm acting like you said something when you didn't, and that's on me, okay? Can we drop it?"

"And enjoy another one of your tantrums in a few days when whatever this is boils over?"

"I do not..." She wasn't entirely wrong, was the problem. He bit his lip and put both hands flat on the counter, in an attempt to stop clenching them. "I won't do that."

"Mm-hmm." She put a hand over his. "Is this okay?"

He nodded. 

"Now tell me what's going on."

He blew out a breath and looked down at their hands. Fuck it. "All you said was four."

"Four?" 

He gave her a meaningful glance. 

"Oh! Oh _that_."

"Yeah. _That_. You said four, but you didn't say anything about after that, so that's all on me."

"What's on you, Ransom?"

"You," he forced out. "Didn't tell me to wait." 

She blinked at him.

"Wait to--"

"No," she held up a hand. "No, I understand now."

"Yeah, so, like I said, not your problem."

"Hmm." She turned his hand over, traced one of the lines on his palm back and forth, then her touch drifted down over his wrist. She pressed two fingers just to the side of the tendons for a few seconds then glanced up at his face. "Your pulse is racing."

"You're standing pretty close," he said, hoarse. 

She tsked at him and shook her head. "That was five days ago, Ransom."

"No shit."

"And that whole time you haven't? At all?"

He could not for the life of him tell if her tone was one of admonishment or curiosity. Was there excitement in her eyes, or did he just want to see it there.

"I asked you a question. I expect an answer."

"Yeah. No, sorry, I haven't at all."

Her brows drew together and she seemed genuinely perplexed. "But why? Why would you do that to yourself?"

"I thought it might," he got distracted by the fact that her fingers trailed up from his wrist along his forearm and circled the sensitive skin at the crook of his elbow. He swallowed hard. "Might be what you wanted."

"You thought this might please me?"

He nodded and watched her fingers skim down to his wrist again, then up, sending shivers along his spine. 

"To hurt yourself like that?" Her voice grew quiet and careful. "You thought I would enjoy that?"

Now that...that was an unexpectedly intriguing thought. He gave her a curious glance. "Would you?"

"Do I want to see you in pain?" After a moment of what looked like genuine contemplation, she said with confidence, "No. I don't want your pain, Ransom."

"It's not...like _actually_ painful." He chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. "I mean blue balls never killed anyone."

"But it's uncomfortable, yes?"

"At times. I mean it's..." he swallowed again, watching her draw circles on his wrist. "It uh comes and goes." 

She whispered in his ear. "Is it here right now?"

He exhaled and leaned back a little, spread his legs, let her see the answer for herself.

"Are you experiencing any discomfort?" she said, mouth close enough he could feel her warm breath on his skin. 

"A little. But like I said, it's not your problem." 

"Do you want me to make it my problem, Ransom?" She asked, lips skimming his ear on the final word. 

" _Fuck_. Of course I do."

She leaned back and smiled at him. Then she stroked his head affectionately, like he'd seen her do to Gordito a thousand times. She gave his temple a lingering kiss, then slid her hand beneath his and lifted it to her mouth. After making a strange noise in her throat, she spit in his hand, then again. Then a third time, leaving a small puddle of saliva in his palm. "I want you to take care of yourself, Ransom." 

He exhaled sharply. Before he could ask any questions or say anything stupid, she turned and walked out of the room. 

Fumbling frantically with his clean hand, he managed to get his cock out, then jacked himself, desperately fast, spreading her slick spit up and down his shaft and biting his lip to hold in the moans of pleasure. Soon, too soon, he spilled in his fist, spurting so much it ran down his knuckles and dripped to the floor. He groaned at the aftershock shudders that wracked his body, hunching over and pressing his forehead to the counter, beside his lunch plate. "Fuuuuck," he whispered. 

He didn't expect to hear her come back into the room. The truth was, he didn't have any expectations at all in that moment. Or a single coherent thought in his head. 

But she did return. She rubbed his back in wide, slow circles and said, "Good job." 

He half-chuckled without lifting his head. 

"Do you feel better?"

"What the fuck do you think?"

"I think you're a very silly man for making up instructions that I haven't given you."

"Toldja," he said, starting to lift his head from the counter.

Her hand came down on the back of his head before he put an inch between his forehead and the marble. Gently, she pressed him back down. "So here is what you're going to do. Are you listening?"

"I am."

"Good. Once you feel up to it, you're going to wash your hands and clean up your mess. Then, you're going to continue clearing the brambles at the south-east corner that you and Victor were working on yesterday. Tonight, in the shower, you will take care of yourself again and use all the time you need. Then, you will wait for further instructions. Does that sound like something you can do for me?"

"Yes," he sighed, feeling the tension leave his body. "Yeah, I can. I will."

"Good boy," she said quietly, then she dragged her nails down his neck and left him to enjoy the pleasant thrum of relaxation that weighed down his body while making him feel like at any second he could just float away.

*

All the Main Street holiday decorations were up now, Ransom thought as he leaned back against a lamppost and waited for Marta. In addition to the tinsel shapes hung from the streetlamps, green strings of lights criss-crossed above the street and the bases of the parking meters had been wrapped in candy cane red and white stripes. Not to mention the tinny rendition of O Come All Ye Faithful that piped onto the sidewalk from the vintage clothing store a few doors down from the building that held his parole officer.

The meeting had gone well, drug test passed, litany of questions asked in a bored tone and answered with a straightforward politeness, and now here he stood, waiting for Marta to return and pick him up. The only evidence of the snow from last week's storm were the dirty, melting mounds that lined the border between the sidewalk and the parking spaces. The sky was a clear, robin's egg blue, the temperature was in the balmy mid-fifties and as Ransom waited, he tipped his head back against the lamppost. 

He couldn't stop smiling to himself. 

This strange, kinky _thing_ that was happening between him and Marta continued to develop into something strange, fucked up, and occasionally beautiful. He couldn't rightly call it a romance. You couldn't even call it reciprocal. He dearly, increasingly desperately wanted the chance to return the favor in any way she wanted, give her even apportion of the pleasure she had given him. But she seemed satisfied with the way things were going. And if she was satisfied, he could be satisfied. 

He certainly enjoyed the way she set the pace, the way it was always up to her whether something happened. Or didn't happen, which could be just as exciting. Being on edge like that, wondering when it would happen again lent the days spice and unpredictability, something that had been in short supply in his life for a very long time.

Before the meeting with his PO, they'd spent most of the morning on line at the DMV, renewing Ransom's drivers license. She'd teased him mercilessly with the smallest of hidden touches throughout their visit, and whispered arbitrary instructions that kept them both amused during the wait. Outside, in the car, she'd buckled her seat belt, given him a smirk and casually told him, "Seven." 

When he'd reached four, she'd hissed, "Someone's coming," quickly unwrapped her scarf and dropped it in his lap, covering his dick. They'd both laughed nervously once the couple passed, and she'd taken the scarf away slowly, letting the texture of the wool drag over his sensitive skin. 

As he'd completed his sixth stroke, he knew he was on the knife's edge. He rolled his head to face her, rasped, "May I finish?" 

She'd plucked her peppermint latte out of the cup holder, where it had sat forgotten and cooling while they were inside. She took a sip while he waited, paused, and said, "No, not right now. It's a little early for that, don't you think?"

"Whatever you say," he said with a strained smile, then gave himself a quick last stroke, "Seven," and wrestled his erection back into his pants. 

She pried off the lid, took another sip, then handed him the cup and said, "Good boy. And you can finish this, if you like." He took it and turned the cup until he found her lipstick print, a smudge of red on the festive white and green pattern, pressed it to his mouth and drank until the cup was empty. 

When she dropped him off at the parole officer meeting, she got out and caught up with him before he got to the front door. "For luck," she said, looping her long scarf around his neck and giving it a playful tug. 

Now he stood on the edge of the sidewalk, fingering the tassels, red and burgundy, pink and gold, and waited for her return. He closed his eyes and enjoyed recalling one of their games from a few nights ago that involved him fully naked and on his knees before her in the den as she read a new batch of scripts. Once word had gotten out that she was reading scripts, it seemed every screenwriter in Hollywood had found one in their desk drawer and sent it along. Nearby the fire blazed, but her perpetually cold feet rested on the tops of his thighs, covered by his hands, as she read him lines she enjoyed and asked his opinion about this plot turn and that event and whether it deviated from the source material. 

At the end of that evening, she'd slipped one foot off his thigh and tucked it up under herself. The other had remained pressed to his leg, covered by his hand. "Twenty-five," she'd told him with a curl of her toes. "And you may finish." He'd followed her instructions to the letter, holding her gaze as he tugged himself and daring to slide the thumb of his other hand up and down the arch of her foot as he counted for her. 

It wasn't like they did that kind of shit 24/7 or even every single day, but the possibility of it hung over every interaction, no matter how banal. It was a tantalizing promise of something good and strange and exciting as a reward for a job well done. Or sometimes, for no reason at all, or no reason more than the fact that it seemed to please her. All of this still felt dreamlike when they played, but it felt a little more sold, a little more real each day. 

Something tugged at his neck and he opened his eyes to find Marta standing before him, fresh peppermint latte in one hand, the other clutching one of the dangling ends of the scarf. She tugged again and he swayed forward, off of the lamppost. She wrapped the end of the scarf around her hand twice, shortening it, then tugged more firmly, forcing him to bend down. His face came perilously close to hers, perilous because with every passing day it was getting harder and harder not to just lean in and kiss her. He knew the time had to be right, though, and so far it hadn't felt quite there yet. 

So he just bit his tongue and allowed himself a lingering look at her mouth, which she caught. With a twinkle in her eye, she whispered, "So how did it go?"

He dipped his head to whisper in her ear, "I'm still a free man." Then he leaned back and licked his lips, taking in her delighted smile, the scent of peppermint and coffee wafting up from the cup, the grounding pressure of the scarf tugging against the back of his neck. Maybe now, he thought. Maybe this is the moment. He caught her looking at his mouth and just when he was allowing for the possibility that he might give in (if this moment went on just a few seconds longer it seemed inevitable) a voice brought him up short.

"Well. Isn't this adorable."

Marta spun around to face the owner of the voice, and Ransom instinctively, protectively placed a hand on her shoulder. He cleared his throat and said evenly, "Mom." 

She lifted her chin. "Ransom." Then without looking at Marta, "Ms. Cabrera." 

"Linda," said Marta in a tight voice. 

"Excuse me, do you mind," his mother said, making a dismissive gesture at Marta. "I'd like to take a look at my son." 

Marta looked over her shoulder at him. Ignoring the scoffing noise his mother made, he looked down at Marta expectantly. He wasn't even sure what he was looking for, but he found it in the small, reassuring nod she gave him before stepping out of the way.

His mother took her time looking him over, and then to his horror, her eyes began to go watery, her lip trembling. Linda Drysdale was never what you would call a soft touch and so to see her close to tears like this was both suspicious and deeply disconcerting. Stiffly, she gripped both of his shoulders and shook her head. "My God, look at you."

"Yeah," he said dryly. "It's been a minute, hasn't it?" 

She'd visited him every couple months for the first year, updating him on the progress of their civil suit against Marta, and the messy divorce she and his father were battling out. More than once she had expressed frustration that Ransom's plea deal had made the civil suit much more difficult to win. She'd said she thought he had more fight in him than that. He'd pointed out that he was risking more than 30 years if he lost that fight. She'd told him it was still selfish and he owed it to his family to consult them before he made a decision like that that affected all of them. 

He'd told her to eat shit and left the visiting room. 

After visits were suspended for the worst of the outbreak, her trips to the prison dropped to once a year on his birthday and then on year four they stopped.

"Ransom?" Marta's voice was hesitant, but at that single word, he felt his vibrating tension unlock, slightly. Then her hand came to rest on the small of his back and he felt centered once more. 

His mother's lips pursed. "So it is true. Your father's usually so full of shit, I had my doubts."

Marta gave her a hard smile. "Was there something you wanted, Linda?" 

His mother gave Marta a challenging look. "Not that it's any business of yours, but I will be taking my only child to lunch." 

"Is that right, Ransom?" Marta gave him a look that seemed to be offering him an out. 

" _Excuse_ me, it's not up to _you_."

"No," Marta said, all sweet acid. "It's up to him."

He swallowed the urge to laugh nervously.

"Ransom," his mother said impatiently. 

If she'd tracked him down, and she'd obviously tracked him down, she had something she felt the need to say to him. In his experience, Linda Drysdale did not take no for an answer when she felt the need to speak her mind. He didn't know the specifics of the restraining order, but he didn't doubt that if he put her off, she would come onto Marta's property at a time of her choosing. He didn't want to put Marta in that position, didn't want the hassle that would mean to either of them. 

And if he was really honest with himself, he didn't want to see his mother there, in Marta's house, in that space that was also beginning to feel like his own. Besides, if he smiled and nodded and didn't push back for the sake of pushing back, this might go quicker. And, he thought as he leaned back ever so slightly against Marta's touch, unlike Ms. Cabrera, Ransom Drysdale could handle his mother's interrogation with as many smiles and lies as necessary. So he might as well get this out of the way now. "It'll be fine, Marta," he reassured her.

His mother scoffed impatiently. "Of course it will, come now." She held out her keys and pressed a button. A nearby car beeped once. 

Before he could step away, Marta's hand landed on his wrist and he paused for her. 

"What _now_?" His mother scowled at her. "What is it?"

Something flared in Marta's eyes for just a second, and to Ransom, it felt possessive. It felt electric. Then her placid, unreadable mask dropped back down. She crouched to carefully set her coffee cup on the sidewalk, rose, then said with an eerie calm, "First, tell me where you're taking him, Linda."

His mother raised her voice. "Where he goes is none of your business."

Marta's voice got quieter, somehow even calmer. "I am making it my business." That she didn't trust Linda was clear. She hadn't told him details about their interactions over the last decade, but he had no doubt his mother had given her reasons for that lack of trust. 

His mother's ruthlessness in business wasn't violent in the traditional sense, but it was legendary. She was accustomed to being respected or feared or both. But if you have to have only one, she'd said to him once, it's better to make them understand that screwing with you is a very, very bad idea.

"You know," he said holding up both hands, hoping to head off a confrontation that might derail his plan to get this conversation done with as quickly as possible, "Looks like the diner across the street is open."

"A _diner_?" His mother looked borderline appalled. 

"I'll wait for you in the car," Marta said, angling herself so her back was to his mother. "How does that sound?"

"That sounds good." 

"You take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere." She caught the end of his scarf and gave it a gentle tug. 

He rocked forward, weight going to the balls of his feet as he leaned into her space. "That sounds good too. I'll be fine."

She patted his chest with her free hand, gentle pressure shifting him back onto his heels as she continued to pull on his scarf so it pressed reassuringly against the back of his neck. The combination of push and pull centered him. "Of course you will, but if you need anything, you let me know. All right?"

"Yeah," he said, bringing his hand up to hers and squeezing it briefly, then watching as she slipped her hand from his, retrieved her coffee, and walked away from him. 

The view was unparalleled.

His mother cleared her throat. 

He turned back to her with a plastered on smile. "Let's eat."

*

His mother got a black coffee and a Cobb salad, picked at it while she filled him in on the expansion of her business empire over the last couple years, despite how exhausting the court cases against Marta had been. 

He poked at his chowder and tore uneaten pieces off the hard rolls from the basket in the middle of the table and listened, nodding at the appropriate points. The divorce was over, but his father, according to her, couldn't help but continue to make a mess of his life. "You have a brother now," she dropped mid tirade.

He chewed the dry mouthful of bread he'd just taken, washed it down, then said, "Excuse me?"

"With some cocktail cutie in Vegas. She's something like twenty-four. The kid's nearly...three, I think?" She rolled her eyes. 

"What's his name?"

"Braidyn. With an I and a Y." She rolled her eyes so hard he was afraid she might pull something.

"He, uh. Didn't mention that." 

She set down her coffee with a careful clink. "You saw him?"

"He came to her house."

"He's not supposed to do that."

"From what I hear, none of you are."

"Oh that." She gave a dismissive gesture. "A misunderstanding." 

"I'm sure."

"What did he want?"

"Access to her house." 

His mother scoffed. "He's convinced Dad kept valuables hidden somewhere in his office. As if the place hadn't already been ransacked by that little..." she scowled. "Well. What would you call her?"

"I usually go with ‘Marta.’”

"Mm-hmm." She eyed him dubiously. "You know, I always thought your father was an idiot. Not at...well, yes. At the beginning too. But at least then he had his good qualities."

Ransom rubbed the bridge of his nose and waited for her to continue. 

"I never believed his little theory about you and that one," she jerked her head at the window, which faced the street and offered a direct view of Marta's car, where she sat and watched the two of them just like she said she would. 

"Oh? Which theory?"

"That this was all one big plan cooked up by a couple of lovebirds. Your grand sacrifice."

He blew on a spoonful of soup, ate it, and said thoughtfully"His theory is bullshit, you know."

"Of course it is." She leveled a steely gaze at him. "You would never be so selfless. And you were a fool in a lot of ways, but you were never a fool for love. Women were never more than a pretty distraction for you."

"Is that so?"

"Am I wrong?" She dipped her chin and looked at him over the top of her glasses.

"Probably not." He took a couple more bites of his chowder while she studied him.

"You know," she said finally, tapping her coffee cup on the saucer a few times before setting it down. "If I'm not mistaken, you two weren't even screwing, back then."

"Why do you say that?"

She made a dismissive gesture. "Oh please. We both know your grandfather wouldn't have tolerated it. And he would have known."

"You make a good point."

"You're screwing her now though. I'm not wrong, am I?"

"Convince me how that's any of your fucking business and I might consider answering your question." 

She smirked. "I don't believe you'd get so salty if you weren't."

"Believe what you want."

The smirk faded. "You think I _want_ to believe you're sharing a bed with the woman who stole everything from us?"

"I think you keep talking about it. But fine, for the sake of argument, sure. We're boinking each other's brains out. Where are you going with this?"

With narrowed eyes, she studied him. Then, shifting into a stiffer posture, she said, "You've changed."

He refrained from the easy retorts about how spending nearly a quarter of his life behind bars might do that to a man, and instead just shrugged. "Happens to the best of us." 

"And the worst of us. And everyone in between, I suppose," she said glancing out the window. "Is that her car, the white one?"

He nodded. 

She nodded slowly, then turned back to him. "You think you know heartache. Then you have a child. Maybe you'll understand one day. You're still young." She laughed. "You're not even forty."

"I turned forty last spring."

"That can't be right." 

Rather than argue, he took out his fresh driver's license and set it on the table, then pushed it toward him with one finger. 

She picked it up and squinted at it, then held it out at arm's length and narrowed her eyes. "You're right," she said with a chuckle, handing it back. "You're making me feel old."

"You are old," he said evenly.

Something hard passed behind her eyes, then with deliberate care, she softened and gave him that client-ready smile. She wanted something. He could tell. He braced himself. 

"Boinking aside, I can't imagine why you'd want to stay in that house, with that girl. After everything that happened."

"After everything I did?"

"You had your reasons," she said sweetly. "And all has been forgiven."

Had it? Because he didn't remember anything resembling those words passing her lips. 

"Of course, you don't have to stay with her now. That nonsense is over. You'll stay with me. I'm sure I can find you a suitable position at the company. Not," she wrinkled her nose, "the manual labor that girl has you doing. Your father said she had you chopping wood."

"I thought you said you didn't know he'd come to visit?"

"Did I?"

He thought about calling her out on not being there on release day, but he didn't feel like listening to her excuses, or the reasons why it was somehow his fault. Instead, he said, "I like manual labor. And I like living in her house." 

"My father's house--"

" _Her_ house," he insisted. "With _her_."

"That's just...it's..."

"It's what?"

"Well, you have to admit that it's perverse, is what it is. After what she did to our family."

"More perverse than me getting away with murdering your father?" 

She blanched. "That's not what happened."

"Isn't it?" Because as indirect and convoluted as the series of events leading to Harlan's death was, that's still how he thought about it, when he was honest with himself. And he was as much as he could be these days. "I like to think he'd be at least a little proud of how it went down. The way I came _this close_ to getting away with it. Made it so he went out in a," he imitated Harlan's cadence, "scandalous tangle of intrigue," he returned to his normal voice, "Instead of dying quietly in his sleep. He didn't want to go quietly, you know. He told me that."

She was still pale, but she nodded and said, "He told me that too." 

"She's been telling me stories," he lied smoothly, curious about her reaction. "Things he told her about the family. I like her stories. They make me feel close to him. I like staying in that house with her, so your kind and timely offer is noted, but I'm going to have to decline." 

She pursed her lips, then gave him a tart smile. "Well, good for you. You must be really enjoying yourself with her," she took a sip of coffee. "For now."

"It's working so far."

"Mm-hmm. From what I saw earlier, seems to be working out quite well. Especially for a man in your position."

"What position?"

"Well," she glanced out the window in the direction of Marta's car, then back at him. "She's certainly still a physically attractive girl. And until recently, your dating prospects have been, shall we say, limited. Charming women was never hard for you, just like your father in that respect, but it's reasonable that you've lost some confidence. So a dalliance with her, to get your sea legs back...it's understandable. I don't begrudge you that."

"You don't...begrudge me. A dalliance. With the woman you blame for taking the family fortune."

"Oh, I'm sure it's all _very_ exciting and taboo. For both of you."

With effort, he kept his voice calm. "You seem awfully certain about your assessment of a situation you know jack shit about. And a man you haven't spoken with in five years." 

She scoffed. "You're my son, Ransom. You're part of me. I know you."

He didn't respond.

"So I don't mind that you two are screwing. I really don't. And you've probably got a lot of unresolved anger toward that girl, so like I said, I'm sure it's all very...exciting. I just want you to remember that there are other women out there."

He opened his mouth to speak.

She held up a hand. "I understand. I do. If you're anything like your father, and I think you are, novelty holds great appeal for you. But whatever is going on between the two of you--"

"Nothing is going on." 

"--it will fade. You will get bored. You will remember that there are other women."

"It isn't like that."

"Oh?" she asked, affecting innocent curiosity. "What is it like?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because you're my son and I love you. And I think it's important to know you have options."

Yes. Options. He was definitely swimming in those. "Thanks for the update."

"You're welcome," she said coolly. Then, her smile shifted into something else entirely. It wasn't an unfamiliar smile, he'd seen it more than once when she was dealing with business rivals. On the surface, it was almost placid and more than camera-ready. Lurking in her eyes, though, was the promise that someone was about to get royally, unpleasantly screwed. 

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He wasn't sure whether it was the fact that it was aimed at him, or that he'd sharpened his instincts over his bid, but every mental alert informing of the arrival of a predator was blaring. 

"You know," she said, conversationally, "your uncle agrees with me."

"How so?"

"The two of you, together in that house. Whatever it is or isn't like," she hit the 'k' hard then smiled, with teeth. "It's understandable that you might want to take advantage of it for a time, but at best, you're going to get bored. And at worst..."

He didn't prompt her. Just watched her dully, waiting for the shoe to drop. 

The waitress came by and refreshed her coffee. After an interminable wait that Ransom was determined not to speak first during, his mother finally said, "And at worst...well. Like I said, your uncle and I are in agreement."

"Agreement about what?"

"If something happens. If she provokes you. If there's a...well...." She nodded at him significantly.

"If there's an accident? Is that what you're trying to say?"

"Exactly, yes. An accident." She grinned, and this one was horrifyingly genuine. "Or whatever you'd like to call it, the point is, no matter what happens, Walt and I are here for you."

"You've got my back?'

"Sweetheart," she reached across and squeezed his hand. It took all his willpower not to yank it away. "Of course we do. Always. But I mean it when I say, you just take your time for now. Enjoy yourself. But when whatever game you're playing gets old, or..."

"Or if something 'happens'?" he sneered. "You got anything in mind?"

"Well, that's not for me to say, is it? I never had a head for that sort of thing. Not like you, dear. Skipped a generation, as your grandfather used to say. He would tell me how helpful you were at finding plot holes in his clever little murder schemes. How useful you could be--"

"Useful?" he ground out. Hearing that word out of her mouth, in the same breath as suggesting he _do something_ to Marta set something off inside of him, quick and hot. She spent years, his family spent years, _decades_ driving home the fact that for them, Ransom was useless. For her to blaspheme that word, by suggesting he do something like that, it made his blood pound at his temples and his ears ring with barely controlled rage. 

_Useful_. That word wasn't hers to use to describe him. She'd given up that right. That word was Marta's. 

His mother reached across the table and patted one of his clenched fists. "Honey. I'm not saying today or even next week. By all means, enjoy your current situation. And if the games she's playing with you--"

"Games? What _games_?" 

"Ransom. Son, you do know why she's doing this. I know you're smart enough to figure it out. You don't think it's out of the goodness of her heart, do you?"

He yanked his hand away from her grip and pressed his palms to his thighs in an attempt not to grab something on the table and throw it, or something equally petulant. "And you have it figured out?"

She tilted her head and looked at him with pity. "Oh, you do. You poor thing." She laughed softly to herself, then sipped her coffee and sat back. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You're even more like your Grandfather than I knew. A pretty face, some superficial kindness, and you're ready to call her a saint."

"Okay. Whatever," he said, forcing a neutral tone. He looked out the window and saw Marta's hand raise in a little wave. A fraction of his tension relaxed. "Are we done here?" 

She clinked her coffee cup on her saucer, then again, more loudly, until he glanced from the window back over to her. "Almost," she said with a dangerously sweet smile. "I just need you to understand something. I spoke with your uncle and, yes, even your father when we found out you were being released. The fact that we weren't there, it wasn't an accident."

"Yeah," he all but snarled. "Didn't think it was."

"It hurt me not to be there for you. You need to understand how difficult it was for me."

"Mm-hmm."

"Don't be like that. I love you, you know I do. I'm your mother, of course I love you, even when you make it difficult. And we both know, you haven't always made it easy. But that's beside the point."

His leg started bouncing and he looked out the window to Marta again. 

"Ransom," his mother said sharply. "Are you listening?"

"Yeah, got it. I'm hard to love."

She tsked at him. "That's not what I'm saying."

"Then spit it the fuck out, Linda."

"Your whole life," she said, voice hardening, "we spoiled you. We gave you everything, we gave you opportunity after opportunity, endless chances, and what was the result?"

"Yeah, got it, I'm a piece of shit. I know this song. Can we wrap it up?"

She adjusted her glasses and continued. "We _decided_ that coddling you after your release would only put you on the wrong track again. You needed to learn how to stand on your own two feet. Find your bootstraps. Discover the joy," she put her hand over her heart, "the true satisfaction that comes from being a self-made man. We robbed you of that, and we decided it would be wrong to do that again, now that you've got this second chance."

He huffed out a laugh. "Okay. Sure."

"What we didn't account for was _that girl_ taking you in for her own twisted purposes."

"Yeah, super twisted. Offering a bed and a job to someone with _literally_ nothing to his name. What kind of fucked up monster does something like that?" 

His mother smirked. 

"What?"

"Oh, it's not my place to say."

He sighed and waited. 

"No, I'm telling you that legally, it isn't my place to say. I signed an agreement."

He raised his eyebrows at her. 

"All I'll say is this. You didn't need to walk out of prison empty handed." When he continued to stare at her, she leaned forward and added in a conspiratorial whisper, "Ask that girl what happened to your house."

"My house."

She nodded. 

"The one you insisted on keeping in your name, for tax purposes." 

She shrugged. "Like I told you. She's not a saint. And if you're not asking yourself what she has to gain by making you dependent," she spat the word like it was a curse, "on her charity, maybe you're not as clever as your grandfather thought you were."

He shook his head at her. "I needed help, Mom. I _need_ help. I wanna rebuild my life, but I can't do it on my own."

"You're better than that. You're stronger than that. You don't need anything from that girl. You know that charity will only make you weak."

Readying to stand, he shoved his chair back with an abrupt, loud scrape that drew the attention of half the diner. 

"You're _making_ a _scene_ ," she whispered. 

He smiled. " _This_ isn't a scene."

She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, clearly trying to calm herself. When she opened them again, he saw that predatory gleam that he learned to spot early on during his stint. "I'm glad that you're happy. I'm your mother, of course I want you to be happy. What mother wouldn't? But I think you've lost perspective. It's understandable, given where you've been, but it's in your best interest, everyone's best interest, for you to remember who and what you are."

"And what's that, _Mother_."

"A man who never stays happy with what he has. Not for long. You will get tired with the crumbs she's giving you, and you will grow to resent what she has taken from you. From all of us. And when that time comes, I don't want you to do something impulsive." 

"When something _happens_ to her, you mean. What exactly do you want me to do to her?"

"I just want you to think before you act. And I want you to remember, when the time comes, you don't need to be sloppy. You have allies. When she gets what's coming to her, you don't have to be the one to pay for it. Not if you're smart about it."

There was part of him, the optimistic pebble that led him to wait for that ride outside the prison gates, that didn't want to believe what he was hearing. That his mother wasn't actually expecting him, all but asking him, to hurt Marta. No, he didn't need to soft pedal this. She believed that he had it in him to kill Marta. 

And yeah, fine, so everybody--everybody but Marta--believed he'd already tried that once before, but didn't she think a person could change? Wasn't there some small part of her that didn't think the worst of him? But as he searched her face, all he saw was resolve, and if he wasn't mistaken, a splash of excitement at the thought of Marta getting 'what's coming to her.' He began to wonder about a lot of things, including what exactly led to the order of protection. 

No, he didn't want to believe what he was hearing, but he'd spent too many years surrounded by too many people capable of some dark, dark shit to pretend ignorance. Still, she was his mother, and he wanted to make sure those years hadn't totally warped his radar about this sort of thing. So he sat back and forced his body to relax, ducked his head and said with a contrite tone, "You're right. I was sloppy, wasn't I?"

"And impulsive. And look what happened. Our fortune, your birthright, in the hands of that...that..." She bit her lip. 

"That girl. You know what? You're right. I can't argue with you about that. But, I mean, just because something _happens_ to her, it doesn't mean we get it back."

"Oh of course it doesn't. But that's not the point. I don't need your grandfather's money. And against all odds, Walt's carved out a nice little career for himself. And if something were to happen, you'd be taken care of."

He looked her in the eye. "Taken care of? What are we talking?"

"Now is not the time to talk about numbers, Ransom. Once you get tired of playing house, you contact me and we can figure something out that works for both of us. The money isn't the important thing here."

"No?" He asked, all feigned curiosity.

"This isn't about getting the family fortune back."

"Then what's it about?" 

His mother jabbed her finger at the table in time with her proclamation. "Making sure that _bitch. Does not. Get. To have it._ " 

Her words chilled him but he didn't let that show. He couldn't. He knew that she was dead serious, and that the hate rolling off her in waves wasn't something that would go away. Not if it had lasted this long. He had no idea what his mother and Walt were capable of, but if he turned her down cold, he got the feeling he might find out. 

So instead, he nodded slowly and reached out to take her hand. "I understand."

"Do you?" 

He nodded solemnly. 

"She's not your blood, Ransom." She squeezed his hand. "She's not family."

"I know." 

"You owe her, nothing," she said, voice going ragged. " _Nothing_ , do you hear me?"

"Don't you worry. I'm not gonna forget exactly who my family is. I know who I can depend on, Mom."

"You have no idea how good that is to hear. Truly." She reached into her purse and slid a card across the table to him. "I knew you'd see reason."

"Oh it's crystal clear to me now. I understand what you're saying." 

"And I mean it, take your time. And forget I told you about your house. Don't say anything to her about it, it'll only make her suspicious."

"I hear you."

"I am so glad you and I are on the same page about this. Walt will be so pleased."

"Well that's...that's great to hear."

"He can get so impatient. This will put him at ease. This is better for everyone, you'll see." Sitting back, she gestured for the waitress to bring the check. "It has been so good to catch up, but I must get back to the city. You understand, don't you?"

"Yeah, Mom," he said, using every ounce of practice he had to keep a neutral face. "I understand."

*

Marta said nothing when he climbed into the passenger's seat. She just reached over and clasped his arm, gave it a gentle squeeze. 

"I'm fine," he rasped. 

"Okay." She rubbed his shoulder. 

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"You don't have to." Her hand slipped further up and found the back of his neck. 

At the contact, he felt some of the shame and anger and, yes, fear he'd been holding in through that conversation dissipate. Not most of it, he still felt like he needed a shower, but enough that he let out an unsteady breath and tipped his head back, pressing his neck into the comforting touch of her hand. 

"Did you see all that?" he whispered.

"Yeah. The whole thing. I'm not about to leave you alone with her. Not if you don't want me to."

His breath hitched in his chest. "I would never hurt you."

Her rhythmic massage of the tense muscles paused. "Ransom?"

"Even if you get tired of this, _when_ you get tired of this, you just tell me, and I'll go. I promise."

She stroked the back of his head. "What did Linda say to you?"

He rolled his head so he was facing her, squeezed his eyes shut at the burning in the corners. Blew out a sharp breath, then told her honestly, "I don't care what your reasons are."

"Reasons for what?"

"For this. Me. What you're doing for me. What you do to me."

She brushed a thumb over his cheek. "What do I do to you, Ransom?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, but I like it," he rasped. 

"I like it too," she whispered. 

"Yeah?"

"Of course. How could you not know that?"

He laughed and turned away, wiping his face. Fuck. His cheeks were wet. How did that happen? "I don't fucking know, you're kinda hard to read sometimes."

"Hey," she said. "Hey, come on." There was the click of her seat belt unbuckling, and then the pressure of her hand on his shoulder, then her knee on his thigh, and before he knew it, her soft weight rested squarely on his lap. She sat sidesaddle, one leg draped awkwardly across the center console, the other resting between his, her side pressed to his chest, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. 

There was no thought, no intention, just his arms going around her and squeezing her tight, tighter than he should have maybe, but she didn't complain, just pressed her face against his neck. 

He buried his face in her hair and inhaled.

"I know I am," she murmured against his skin. "I know. With my thing, my lying thing...people always knew. They would find out. And then, if they could see what I was thinking...they would know to ask questions. I hated that, you know?" 

He heard the real hurt in her voice and rubbed slow circles on her back. "Yeah. I bet."

"I would feel so powerless. Not being allowed to choose what I get to keep to myself. I hated it so much. Other people taking that from me. My own body, taking that choice away from me. Betraying myself like that. So if I hold in what I'm feeling...if I don't show what I," she pressed something that felt dangerously close to a kiss against the hinge of his jaw, "what I feel. It's habit. It protected me. My therapist says--"

"You have a therapist?" 

She sat up enough to look him in the eye, and she wasn't crying but her eyes looked red and wet around the edges. With a gentle laugh, she patted his face. "What happened fucked me up."

Fuck. Guilt he'd almost convinced himself wasn't there dropped back into his stomach like a stone, heavy and cold and making it hard to breathe. Of course it fucked her up, he knew that. But hearing her say it plain like that, no accusation, just the truth...it was hard to bear. So he said the only thing he could think of. "I'm sorry."

"Oh no, no I didn't mean that."

"I am. I don't know if I've said to you, I think maybe I didn't, but I am sorry for what I did to you."

She laid her head back down on his shoulder. "Thank you. I believe you. And I appreciate you saying it. But what I was saying was," she patted his chest. "What happened fucked me up, but there were other things that weren't in such good working order even before, you know? And I had the money. Why wouldn't I find a professional to help me figure my shit out? I needed help, so I found someone who could help."

"And they helped?"

She laughed. "It's a process, but yeah. This habit I have of playing things close to my chest, it protected me. But like she says, the habits we learn to protect us, sometimes as we grow, they don't serve us as well anymore. I'm working on it. But in the meantime, you don't need to read me, okay? You can ask. I want you to ask. I'll tell you the truth."

"You can have your secrets. Your reasons. I told you, I don't need them."

She sat up straighter, her bottom shifting distractingly against his groin, but her next words snapped him into sharp focus. "The way I feel about you, I don't want it to be a secret. Not from you, anyway." 

His throat was tight, but he forced the words out, "And how _do_ you feel?"

She bit her lip and lowered her lashes, looking away, her cheeks betraying a hint of pink. "I like you." She pressed a quick, soft kiss to his cheek. "I like this..." she shifted her hips, rocking a deliberate, maddeningly tempting circle against his increasingly engaged lap. "I like what you and I do."

He exhaled, shuddering at the overwhelming closeness. Her solid weight against him and her words, words he knew had to be true, made him feel grounded, connected to something real. Something he could trust. Someone who would make use of him, but for _good_ things, not...not. He nuzzled his cheek to hers, found her neck with his lips and pressed a tentative kiss there. 

"You don't have to," she gasped softly as he kissed his way to her throat, open-mouthed. "Mmm, I like that but hold on, just for a minute." 

He groaned in frustration but did as she said, nosing his way to her ear. In a ragged whisper, he said, "Yes, ma'am."

"Listen to me, Ransom. Are you listening?"

"Mm-hmm." 

"I get the feeling Linda told you something that upset you. Something about me."

He tipped his head back against the headrest and swallowed hard. "It doesn't matter. She lies."

"If it upset you, it matters to me, okay? I don't know if I've ever seen you this shook up."

"I can handle it. I can handle her."

"I know. I do. And you don't have to tell me, all right? This isn't an order, or anything like that. I won't get mad at you if you keep it to yourself. But I want you to know you don't have to handle it alone, whatever it is."

"It's bullshit."

"I can handle her bullshit. I know you've got a lifetime of experience, but over the last several years...I've gotten some experience as well. So if you want to, and only if you want to, you can tell me."

He blinked at the ceiling and heard his mother's voice in his ear, "Don't say anything about it." He remembered the dozens, Christ, probably hundreds of times she or his father or Walt or some other family member asked him to keep a secret. Don't tell your grandfather you got kicked out of boarding school. Keep your mouth shut about your father's arrest. When your mother gets home from her business trip, she doesn't need to know that my personal trainer had breakfast here three days in a row. You didn't see anything, Ransom, and don't say a word about it, you'll only make her upset. 

And despite the fact that he knew Marta could handle it, that she wouldn't worry that he was tempted, he felt as certain of that as he was of anything, he still felt such shame at the idea that his mother thought _this_ was what he was good for. That she'd tracked him down not to see her only son or offer her unconditional support, or even to wish him good luck. She'd come to see him to tell him he was only good for violence. Betrayal. Revenge. That was the use she wanted to put him to. And as low as Marta's opinion likely was of his mother, it was still humiliating. 

And right now, he felt so good, so wanted and safe with her in his arms, he couldn't bring himself to put that thought out there between them. Maybe later. Definitely later. But as for right now, he could tell Marta the other poison his mother had poured in his ear, hear her denial, and be done with it. So he took a deep breath and said as casually as he could manage, "She said to ask you about my house."

Marta said nothing, but he felt her stiffen. Just for a moment, but holding her close like he was, he couldn't miss it. 

"It doesn't matter," he said. "It was never technically mine anyway, and I--"

"It matters," Marta said quietly, sitting up and looking him in the eye. There was guilt on her face. "I should have...I meant to tell you. Eventually."

There was a time when her tone would have made him worry, would have set off alarm bells, and he wasn't _not_ concerned. Because clearly she was concerned. But he couldn't imagine anything she could tell him would change the way he felt about her. "What happened?" He joked, "Did you burn it down or something? Isn't that my job?" 

She bit her lip and looked away.

"Whatever it is, I don't care, all right?"

With a sigh, she climbed off of his lap and back into the driver's seat. "Maybe not, maybe you might, but I don't want to keep secrets from you."

"Okay," he said hesitantly. 

"It would be easier to show you."

"If that's...if it's what you want."

"It's overdue. And it is what I want." She turned on the car and put it into drive. 

*

"Wait here," she said, leading him into the kitchen. "I'll only be a minute." 

He sat in one of the chairs and when Gordito shuffled into the room, Ransom got a few dog biscuits from the jar and tossed one to him. "You got any idea what this is about buddy?" 

Gordito crunched at the biscuit and then looked up at Ransom expectantly. 

"Can't be that bad," Ransom said, tossing him. 

"I hope not," Marta said, entering the room with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She dropped it on the counter in front of him, then pulled out a fat stack of bills, about six inches high. And another. And a third, a little taller than the first two. After that, she pulled out of series of documents that he recognized as his birth certificate, his passport, his social security card, bonds that were a gift from his grandfather on his eighteenth birthday. 

"What is this?" he asked quietly. 

She blew out a steadying breath, then sat in the chair across from him, folded her hands, and began to speak. "Like I told you, what happened 10 years ago," she said, "it fucked with my head. As you might expect. But I had an awful lot of money. And one of the things I did to feel better and regain a sense of control, was to give your parents a little bit of that money. For your house, which was technically in their name. As well as the contents, which was probably not legal but it did not take very much more of that money to get them to hand it over as well." 

"What the fuck?" he said aloud this time, not upset so much as confused. "You had this house, why did you need my shit too?"

"This house?" She gestured broadly, with both hands. "I was given. Your belongings? I took. And it felt good." 

He blinked at her. 

"I did get that call from Meg, and I took you here because I felt sorry for you, and because I could use the help, and because of the scripts." 

"And also," he prompted.

"And because it felt good to take you, too. It felt good to have control over you." 

"That sounds..."

"Unhealthy? My therapist agrees."

"I was going to say a little fucked up."

She smiled ruefully. "Yes, 'unhealthy' is therapist speak for 'fucked up'."

"Okay."

"I went through everything you owned in an attempt to understand you." 

"But _why_?"

She shook her head. "What happened between us, so much of it was out of my control. Trying to figure you out...It made me feel in control. For a while there, at the beginning, after you first went away...I was a little bit fixated on you. On figuring out why you did what you did. It felt better than dealing with what was going on inside of me. I don't know if that makes any sense--"

"I..." he frowned at the stack of items in front of him. He felt a little violated, he couldn't deny that. But on another level, he also understood. He'd certainly fixated on her for years while he was on the inside. He'd just assumed that she'd moved on. When he really put thought into what she might be doing out in the real world, and not in the twisted mess that was his fantasy life, he always assumed she didn't even think about him. "I think I understand."

"Eventually, I moved past it. I worked on myself. I worked on not feeling guilty about all this money I got from such a tragedy. I found meaning with the things I could do with that money, with the power it gave me. Holding onto your house felt wrong, so I sold it," she patted the fat stacks of cash. "Getting rid of your things...I thought about it, but I put them into storage, most of them anyway. I kept this...I'm not entirely sure why, but knowing I had this, your life, everything you needed to start over in a bag in my closet...it made me feel safe. Like I had some power over you. And then I found Harlan's journals, hidden in a false wall in the back of the closet."

He snorted. "Of course he had one of those."

"And...it's just one man's opinion. But it was the story of your life, Ransom. All of your lives. I felt...sorry for you. Don't get me wrong, you were an asshole. All of you were assholes. The things he wrote about, how selfish and cruel you all could be. I knew from working here for a year, but the secrets he knew. About all you. He loved you, but he _knew_ you. All of you. There were dozens and dozens of volumes...and learning all these things...it was enough. It felt like enough to let me move on. And I did. I had. And then..."

"And then?" 

"And then a few years later, I got that call from Meg."

He sat back in his chair. 

"I wish I could tell you that the only reason brought you here was that I felt pity for you. Or that it felt like the right thing to do when I realized you'd been abandoned, or the," she gestured at the window, "groundskeeping or the scripts, and that was part of it. But after I picked you up and we were in that car and you were asleep, and wet and pathetic and helpless...I looked at you. And I felt..." She bit her lip and looked up at him with such guilt in her eyes. "I felt so powerful. I thought, he is at my mercy. I thought about how much control I could have over you and it...it excited me."

He let out a breath. 

"I thought I was past it, but I wasn't. I told myself that it would only be a day or two, I had an excuse, you needed help and then I could send you on your way. I could give Meg money to help you, or I could give you this..." she patted the bag, "and send you on your way. Let you do this on your own, but then..." She sighed. "Things changed. I got to know...not the rich asshole Ransom, or the grandson Harlan knew. But you. The man you are now. The man you want to be. And, God," she blinked and stared at the ceiling for a minute, and when she looked back at him for a few minutes. "I know this is crazy. Everybody thinks this is crazy, and it's barely been more than a month, but...I wanted to keep you. I want to keep you. So I didn't tell you about this. Can you forgive me?"

"Forgive you?" There was such a mix of emotions swirling inside of him in that moment, he almost didn't understand her question. 

"I want to keep you," she said again, stacking the items back in the bag. "I like what we do. I'm not sure where it's going, but I want to find you. And I want, very badly, to keep you. But I don't want...I don't think it's right for me to be your keeper. I like controlling you."

"I like it too," he whispered. 

"But I want you to be able to say no." 

"Of course I--"

She zipped up the bag and pushed it at him. "I want you to be able, really able to walk away if that's what you want. I _need_ your yes to mean something. And so I need you to take this. All of it. There's a key in there to the storage facility where I put your possessions. Enough money to start over if it ever comes to that. I _don't_ ," she grabbed his hand and squeeze, "want you to go. Understand that. But I need you to know that you can." Her voice was trembling by the end of her speech. 

He gave what she said some thought, watched her anxiously watching him as she waited for his reply. He wanted to say the right thing, the perfect thing in the moment, but all he had was the truth, so he gave her that instead. "I don't think you've done anything that needs my forgiveness, but if that's what you want from me, you've got it. Okay?" He squeezed her hand and then brought it to his lips for a kiss. 

She sniffed. "Yeah?"

He smiled gently at her. "Yeah. And I'll take this if you want me to," he patted the bag. "And if I wanna go, I'll let you know. But I do not see that happening any time soon. For a few reasons."

She wiped her face. "What reasons are those?"

"Well," he drawled as he slipped off his chair. "I can think of two off the top of my head." He closed the space between them, and as he drew near, she spread her knees to let him get even nearer. He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her to sit on the marble countertop so she was eye level. After everything she just shared with him, there were a couple of things he needed to get off his chest. "Number one," he said, tapping her on the nose, trying to to keep his tone as light as he could, "My mother also made me an offer, of sorts." 

"What kind of offer?"

"I'm not sure how serious she was, but she more or less implied that if something were to happen and you ended up dead, I'd get compensated."

Her eyes went wide. 

"Number two--"

"Hold on a second."

"Mm-hmm?" he said innocently.

"She asked you to...to kill me?"

He patted her thigh reassuringly. "I'd say strongly implied it was inevitable."

She sputtered.

"And that she and Walt would help me cover it up. Make sure I was taken care of."

More emotions than he could count passed across her face: anger, hurt, outrage, something that seemed like a dark sort of amusement. Finally, she settled on concern and stroked his face. "It must have hurt, that she thought you were capable of that. I'm sorry."

"I mean, to be fair--"

She put a finger to his lips. "To be fair, that is an awful thing to expect another person to do." 

"You know I wouldn't," he said against her finger. 

"I do." 

"So, if she's interested enough in hurting you to make me that offer...I'd feel better about your safety if I stuck around for a little while." 

"My safety, hmm?" She wrapped her arms loosely around his neck. "What are you, my guard dog?" 

"Lap dog's more like it." 

"Oh, I'm sorry, but Gordito has seniority there." She smiled and gave his hips a squeeze with her thighs. 

He leaned closer, hips pressing to the edge of the counter, feeling the easy spread of her legs as she accommodated him. "Guard dog it is, then. If that's what you want."

"Hmm. I guess I could keep you around to look scary and keep the burglars away." She patted his chest with both hands and then played with the top button of his shirt. "No biting though."

"No?" 

She popped the top button open, then the second, then brought one hand to the back of his neck and squeezed, triggering a contented sigh from Ransom. "Not unless I tell you to."

"Mm-hmm/" 

"Ransom?" Her grip tightened. "Look at me."

He was already drifting into that pleasant, relaxed-but-attentive state he found when she put him where she wanted him. But she'd given him a command. His eyelids fluttered open. "Yeah?" 

"I know you've done things. You've hinted at it, and you can tell me later if you want. I don't need to know today. I just need _you_ to know that I don't want you to hurt anyone. _Anyone_. No matter your reasons."

He nodded, "Of course."

"Not," she added, giving the back of his neck a sharp squeeze, "unless I tell you to. Do you understand?"

 _Fuck._ If she knew how hard she'd just made him, she'd probably...he searched her face. Recognized the gleam in her eye, or at least he thought he did. If she knew how excited that thought made him, maybe she _would_ be pleased. "Yes, ma'am," he said.

"Now," she said, letting go of his neck and patting his shoulder. "You told me you had two reasons for sticking around." 

He blinked at her for a second, wracking his fuzzy brain for what she might be talking about. Then it came back to him, and he couldn't help but grin. 

"What? What is that look?" 

"Well, the other reason I'm not going anywhere is that I've got a problem." 

Her eagerness turned to concern. "What is it?"

"I mean, it doesn't have to be your problem if you don't want it to be."

"That's up to me. So tell me what it is."

"You sure?"

She slapped his chest and laughed. "Come on, stop teasing." 

He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissed her fingertips. Turned it over and opened it, kissed her palm, then her wrist, then looked up at her through his lashes. Against her skin, he said, "I don't see myself leaving any time soon, because I haven't kissed you yet."

"No? Then what do you call that?" 

"Oh, this?" He pressed another kiss to her skin, on her fingertips again, then closed his hand around hers. "It's not a real kiss. It doesn't count."

"And you want a real kiss? One that counts?"

He nodded. 

"Well," she said, licking her lips. "What's stopping you?"

"Hasn't seemed like the right time."

She chuckled at him. "After all we've done?" 

"I like our games. But kissing is serious business."

"Oh yeah? So you need an invitation?"

"Couldn't hurt." 

"A request, perhaps?"

He shrugged. 

"How about," she traced her index along his lower lip, "a command."

"Yeah," he rasped. 

She licked her lips again, looked at his mouth for a long moment, then said, "Kiss me. Now."

He grabbed her hips and slid her forward, hips flush with his so she could feel what she was doing to him. Then, trembling with anticipation, he brought his mouth to hers. 

The kiss was softer than he expected, tender and slow as she set the pace. When her lips opened for him, he didn't rush in like his instinct was screaming at him to. Instead he went even slower, nipped at her lower lip, opened for her as well and was rewarded by the curl of her tongue into his mouth. He sucked at her, groaning as she explored him, leaning into her touch as she clutched at his shirt, hands sliding around to cup her rear and pull her even closer. 

He was just considering the possibility of scooping her up and carrying her right up the stairs when she pulled back, panting softly. Her eyes were dazed, and her lips were flushed and slick. "Hold on."

He swallowed a groan. "Was that...was that good?"

She gave him an indulgent smile and cupped his cheek. "Yes, Ransom. That was very good. I liked it. But I'm afraid I have to disagree with you about something." 

"Yeah?'

"That's not the only kind of kiss that counts," She planted a hand on his sternum and gave him a gentle but firm push so he had to take a couple steps back. 

"It isn't? Are you sure?" He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, waiting for the punchline, knowing what she was going to say, mouth getting wet at the thought, but wanting to hear her say it. "Enlighten me."

"Oh I intend to," she said, hooking a thumb in her waistband with some wriggling, managed to push her leggings and her underwear down her thighs, so she was sitting bare ass on the marble countertop. A little more pushing and she got them past her knees, then glanced up at him impatiently. "Don't just stand there. Get on your knees."

He sunk to the floor without a second's hesitation, and caught one of her boots, began to unlace it. "Yes, ma'am," he said with a smile. "Anything you need."


End file.
